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language

love, n.1
Pronunciation: Brit. /lʌv/, U.S. /ləv/
Forms:
α. OE lufo (chiefly Northumbrian), OE lufu, OE luuu, OE (in compounds)–ME luf, OE–ME lufe, lOE–ME luue,
eME leoue, eME lufæ, ME lof, ME loff, ME loffe, ME lofue, ME louf, ME louo (transmission error), ME louue,
ME lov, ME lovfe, ME lovue, ME low, ME lowe, ME lowfe, ME luff, ME luffe, ME lufue, ME 16 lofe, ME (18–
Eng. regional and Irish English) luve, ME–15 (18 Eng. regional (north.) and Irish English) loove, ME–16 loue,
ME– love, lME lone (transmission error), 15 looue, 17–18 luive (Eng. regional (Cumberland)), 18– luv
(nonstandard); Sc. pre-17 leuf, pre-17 leuff, pre-17 leuve, pre-17 lof, pre-17 lofe, pre-17 loif, pre-17 loiff, pre-17
loive, pre-17 loowe, pre-17 lou, pre-17 loue, pre-17 louf, pre-17 louve, pre-17 lov, pre-17 low, pre-17 lowe, pre-17
lowff, pre-17 lowif, pre-17 luf, pre-17 lufe, pre-17 lufee (perhaps transmission error), pre-17 luff, pre-17 luif, pre-
17 luife, pre-17 luiff, pre-17 luiffe, pre-17 luue, pre-17 luw, pre-17 luwe, pre-17 luyf, pre-17 lwfe, pre-17 lwff, pre-
17 lwif, pre-17 lwife, pre-17 17 loove, pre-17 17 luffe, pre-17 17 luive, pre-17 17– love, pre-17 17– luve, pre-17 19–
luv.

β. Sc. pre-17 18 lo, 18 lae, 19– lue.

See also LURVE n.

Frequency (in current use):
Origin: A word inherited from Germanic.
Etymology: Cognate with Old Frisian luve love, Old Saxon luƀa love, inclination, Old High German luba love,
inclination (also in the compound muotluba , mōtluba love), and also with Gothic (weak feminine) -lubō (in brōþru-
lubō brotherly love) < the same Germanic base as Old Saxon luƀig willing, pious, Old English lufen hope, Gothic
lubains hope, and probably also LOF n. (and hence LOVE v.2); these are probably all formed on the zero-grade of an
Indo-European base, other ablaut grades of which are also widely represented in Germanic languages. Compare (from
the e-grade) LIEF adj. and the derived verb forms Old English lēofian to be or become dear, Middle Dutch lieven to be
dear (to), to please (Dutch †lieven , superseded by liefhebben to love, to cherish, lit. ‘to have dear’), Old High German
liobōn , liuben to make agreeable or dear, to be agreeable or dear, to desire, to do (someone) good (Middle High
German lieben to make agreeable or dear, to be or become agreeable or dear, to be pleasing (to), to show kindness
(to), German lieben to love, to be fond of), and also Middle Dutch liefde agreeableness, affection, friendship (Dutch
liefde love), Middle Dutch lieve agreeableness, affection, friendship, love, Old High German liubī , also liuba the
pleasure that one experiences for or through something, agreeableness, fondness, kindliness, goodwill (Middle High
German liebe , in the same range of senses, German Liebe love); the o-grade of the same base is probably shown by
LEAVE n.1, BELIEF n., BELIEVE v.

Outside Germanic the same Indo-European base is probably shown by classical Latin lubet (also libet ) it is pleasing, lubīdō (also libīdō )
desire, Old Church Slavonic ljubiti to love, ljubŭ dear, ljuby (genitive ljubŭve ) love, Old Russian ljubiti to love (Russian ljubit′ ), ljub′′ dear
(Russian ljub ), ljuby (genitive ljub′′ve ) love (Russian ljubov′ ), Sanskrit lubh- to be confused, (later) to feel avid desire, to allure, lobha
(noun) desire, greed.

(For a very different account of the relationships among the various Germanic words, based on the hypothesis that LEAF n.1 is also related,

see F. Kluge Etymologisches Wörterbuch (ed. 24, 2002) at lieb, Laub, Lob, glauben, etc.)
In Old English usually a strong feminine (lufu ); however, a weak feminine form (lufe ) is also attested.

With use denoting a person compare LEMAN n.

I. Senses relating to affection and attachment.

1.

a. A feeling or disposition of deep affection or fondness for someone,

typically arising from a recognition of attractive qualities, from natural
affinity, or from sympathy and manifesting itself in concern for the other's
welfare and pleasure in his or her presence (distinguished from sexual
love at sense 4a); great liking, strong emotional attachment; (similarly) a
feeling or disposition of benevolent attachment experienced towards a
group or category of people, and (by extension) towards one's country or
another impersonal object of affection. With of, for, to, towards.
See also brotherly love at BROTHERLY adj. 1b, mother-love n. at MOTHER n.1 Compounds 7.

eOE (Mercian) Vespasian Psalter (1965) cviii. 4 (5) Posuerunt aduersum me mala pro bonis, et odium
pro dilectione mea : settun wið me yfel fore godum & laeððu fore lufan minre.
OE West Saxon Gospels: John (Corpus Cambr.) xv. 13 Næfð nan man maran lufe þonne ðeos ys þæt hwa
sylle his lif for his freondum.
c1225 (▸?c1200) St. Juliana (Bodl.) 95 (MED) Hire feader feng on earst feire on to lokin ȝef he mahte wið
eani luue speden.
a1325 (▸c1250) Gen. & Exod. (1968) l. 8 Man may him wel loken..Luuen god and seruen him ay..And to
alle cristenei men Beren pais and luue bi-twen.
▸a1387 J. TREVISA tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1865) I. 155 Wommen moste be ouercome
with fairenesse and loue, and nouȝt wiþ sternesse and drede.
a1400 (▸a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 20300 Vre leuedi wep, saint iohan alsua, Treu luue was omang
þam tua.
?a1425 Mandeville's Trav. (Egerton) (1889) 2 What lufe he had til his sugets.
1485 Malory's Morte Darthur (Caxton) I. viii. sig. avv He wende that al the kynges and knyghtes had come
for grete love and to have done hym worship at his feste.
1535 Bible (Coverdale) 2 Sam. i. 26 Thy loue hath bene more speciall vnto me, then the loue of wemen.
1597 T. MORLEY Plaine & Easie Introd. Musicke Pref. Adiuring me by the loue of my contrie.
1598 SHAKESPEARE Love's Labour's Lost V. ii. 415 My loue to thee is sound, sance cracke or flaw.
1611 Bible (King James) Dan. i. 9 God had brought Daniel into fauour and tender loue with the Prince of
the Eunuches.
1680 W. TEMPLE Ess. Orig. & Nature of Govt. in Miscellanea 89 In all these Wars the People were both
united and spirited by the common Love of their Country.
1680 A. LITTLETON Serm. at Meeting Natives of Worcester 16 What shall we say to those who take up
Godliness..as if their strictness and zeal..excused them from all offices of love to their fellow-men.
1717 T. PARNELL in tr. Homer's Battle Frogs & Mice Pref. sig. A3v This particular Knowledge..which sprung
from the Love I bear him, has made me fond of a Conversation with you.
1765 W. COWPER in R. Southey Life & Wks. Cowper (1835) I. 155 My heart was full of love to all the
congregation.
 1817 Times 29 Dec. 2 Liberalism, the love of country, the feeling of duty, have little to do with this
extraordinary division.
1818 W. CRUISE Digest Laws Eng. Real Prop. (ed. 2) II. 346 The natural love which Thomas Kirby bore to
his brother.
1836 W. IRVING Astoria I. 279 His dominant spirit, and his love for the white men, were evinced in his
latest breath.
1872 J. MORLEY Voltaire i. 2 They should prove their love of him whom they had not seen, by love of their
brothers whom they had seen.
1912 T. DREISER Financier xxiv. 290 He was counting practically, and man-fashion, on her love for her
children.
1940 Railroad Mag. Apr. 100/1 There wasn't much about Lang Bolton you'd call human except his love for
a black and white cow-dog named Rounder.
1975 T. CALLENDER It so Happen 20 Peace and love between we and them St. Judes men? Man, you
mekking mock-sport!
1990 M. MARTIN Keys of this Blood 42 The two seminal and ineradicable loves of any individual human
being are the love of God and the love of one's native country.
2004 Smithsonian Nov. 82/2 To speculate that he was trying to surpass his father and win his mother's
love, as some psychohistorians have done, is to take the easy way out.

b. As an abstract quality or principle. (Sometimes personified.)

eOE Cleopatra Gloss. in W. G. Stryker Lat.-Old Eng. Gloss. in MS Cotton Cleopatra A.III (Ph.D. diss.,
Stanford Univ.) (1951) 39 Affectu, for hylde & lufe.
c1275 (▸?a1200) LA% AMON Brut (Calig.) (1963) 2079 He hehte þat luue [c1300 Otho: lofe] scolde liðen
heom bi-tweonen.
a1400 (▸a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 99 (MED) O reut [a1400 Fairf. petey], o loue, and charite, Was
neuer hir mak.
c1400 (▸c1378) LANGLAND Piers Plowman (Laud 581) (1869) B. I. 146 (MED) Trewthe telleþ þat loue is
triacle of heuene.
a1500 (▸?a1425) tr. Secreta Secret. (Lamb.) 135 Humylite Engendryth lowe that destrueth envy and
hatredyn.
1557 F. SEAGER Schoole of Vertue in Babees Bk. (2002) I. 349 Loue doth moue the mynde to mercie.
a1628 J. PRESTON Breast-plate of Faith (1631) 8 Love and hatred are..the great Lords and Masters, that
divide the rest of the affections between them.
1693 W. BATES Serm. Several Occasions v. 176 Human Love is a troubled irregular Passion, mixt with
Ignorance, and prone to Error in the Excess or Defect.
1715 J. BARKER Exilius Pref. sig. A3 Love is the Passion which generally attends Youth.
1798 J. BAILLIE Introd. Disc. in Series of Plays 62 Love is the chief groundwork of almost all our tragedies
and comedies.
1809 S. T. COLERIDGE Notebks. (2002) III. 70 Love is a desire of the whole being to be united to some thing,
or some being, felt necessary to its completeness.
1911 LD. H. TENNYSON Tennyson & Friends 122 He liked home-thrusts at human foibles and frailty, and
again the outwelling of native nobility, generosity, or love.
1941 V. WOOLF Between Acts 92 Love. Hate. Peace. Three emotions made the ply of human life.
 1999 J. WOOD Broken Estate 181 At its highest levels, the novelist's ability to penetrate the otherness of his
characters is indistinguishable from love.

c. As a count noun: an instance of affection or fondness. Also: †an act of

kindness (obs.).

OE Resignation B 116 Þonne ic me to fremþum freode hæfde, cyðþu gecwe[me] me wæs a cearu symle
lufena to leane, swa ic alifde nu.
a1225 (▸?c1175) Poema Morale (Trin. Cambr.) 314 in R. Morris Old Eng. Homilies (1873) 2nd Ser. 229
(MED) Alle godel [read godes] laȝes hie fulleð..Þe þe þos two luues [v.rr. two loue, twa luue, two
luuen] halt and wile hes wel healde.
a1450 Pater Noster Richard Ermyte (Westm. Sch. 3) 11 Alle þe loues þat euere were, or þat euere hadde
fadir or modir to here childer.
1548 Hall's Vnion: Richard III VI. f. liiijv All these loues, bondes and deuties of necessite are this daie to be
experimented, shewed and put in experience.
1573 G. GASCOIGNE Hundreth Sundrie Flowres 330 No such trustlesse flood, Should keepe our loues (long
time) in twayne.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE King John (1623) IV. i. 49 What good loue may I performe for you?
1632 W. LITHGOW Totall Disc. Trav. v. 189 I met with an English ship..whose loues I cannot easily forget.
1695 J. NORRIS Lett. conc. Love of God x. 233 We are therefore to cast both these Loves into one and the
same Chanel, and make them both flow in one full Current towards God.
1733 POPE Ess. Man ii. 35 We learn..those Joys, those Loves, those Int'rests to resign.
1795 C. LLOYD Poems on Var. Subj. 50 Those friendships, those loves, those emotions so dear, That thrill
the young mind.
a1853 F. W. ROBERTSON Lect. & Addr. Lit. & Social Topics (1858) i. 25 The same feelings and anxieties and
loves.
1934 in ‘L. G. Gibbon’ Grey Granite ii. 77 An antrin magic that bound you in one with the mind, not only
the body of a man, with his dreams and desires, his loves, even hates.
a1968 T. MERTON tr. Meng Tzu Ox Mountain Parable ii, in Coll. Poems (1977) 971 The moisture of the
dawn spirit Awakens in us the right loves, the right aversions.
2002 Philadelphia Weekly 17 Apr. 34/2 The movie soundtrack has become the new hip canvas for artists
to flex their cinematic loves and leanings.

†d. In Old English (contrasted with lagu law): amicable or peaceable

settlement (as opposed to litigation). Hence (in later use) occasionally
rendering Latin foedus treaty, covenant. Obs.
under love and law: denoting the position of being a member of a frankpledge.

lOE Laws of Æðelred II (Rochester) III. xiii. §3. 232 Þar þegen age twegen costas, lufe oððe lage, & he
þonne lufe geceose, stande þæt swa fæst swa se dom.
a1325 (▸c1250) Gen. & Exod. (1968) l. 635 God gat it: a token of luuen [Genesis 9:12: signum fœderis]
Taunede him in ðe wakene a-buuen, Rein-bowe, men cleped, reed and blo.
?a1475 (▸?a1425) tr. R. Higden Polychron. (Harl. 2261) (1869) II. 347 The gentiles vsede to caste downe
 the bloode of a sowe in to a signe of luffe.
?a1475 (▸?a1425) tr. R. Higden Polychron. (Harl. 2261) (1872) IV. 123 He..was receyvede in to the
frendschippe of the Romanes, and the forme of the luffe and convention made was wryten in tables of
brasse.
?a1475 (▸?a1425) tr. R. Higden Polychron. (Harl. 2261) (1865) I. 99 Hit [sc. Oreb] is called also the
mownte of fere and of luffe [L. mons terroris et fœderis].
c1503 R. ARNOLD Chron. f. xxxij/1 Yf ther bee ony persone wythin the warde that is not vnder francpledge
that is to saye vndir loue and lawe.

2. In religious use: the benevolence and affection of God towards an

individual or towards creation; (also) the affectionate devotion due to God
from an individual; regard and consideration of one human being towards
another prompted by a sense of a common relationship to God. Cf. CHARITY
n. 1.
In theological discourse the love of complacency [after post-classical Latin amor complacentiae
(a1350 in a British source)] implies approval of qualities in the object, whilst the love of
benevolence [after post-classical Latin amor benevolentiae (13th cent.; a1350 in a British source)]
is bestowed irrespective of the character of the object.

OE (Northumbrian) Lindisf. Gospels: John v. 42 Sed cognoui uos quia dilectionem dei non habetis in
uobis: ah ic cuðe iuih þætte lufu godes [OE Rushw. lufo godes] ne habbas gie in iuih.
a1225 (▸?a1200) MS Trin. Cambr. in R. Morris Old Eng. Homilies (1873) 2nd Ser. 141 Ure
drihten..forgiaf hire hire sinnen, for two þinge, an is muchel leððe to hire sunne, oðer muchel luue to
him.
c1325 in K. Böddeker Altengl. Dichtungen (1878) 201 (MED) Suete loue þe dude gredyn.
a1500 (▸1465) Vision E. Leversedge in Notes & Queries Somerset & Dorset (1905) 9 34 In the name of
our Lord Jhesu Crist and for that lof that he had vn to ȝou in the tyme of his passion.
1526 Bible (Tyndale) 1 John v. 3 This is the love of god, that we kepe his commaundementes.
1611 Bible (King James) 1 John iv. 16 God is loue, and hee that dwelleth in loue, dwelleth in God.
a1629 W. PINKE Trial of Christians Sincere Loue Christ (1636) 84 Lastly, it will not be amisse to obserue
two things of this loue of complacency arising from a perswasion of Christs loue vnto vs in particular.
1648 S. RUTHERFORD Surv. Spirituall Antichrist xix. 20 We teach that the love of benevolence and good will
is the liking, free delight, and choise of the person to glory, and to all the meanes, even to share in
Christs Mediatory love.
1720 D. MANLEY Power of Love I. 71 Then it was, that she felt the Love of God.
1796 S. T. COLERIDGE Relig. Musings in Poems Var. Subj. 153 Lord of unsleeping Love, From everlasting
Thou!
1836 J. GILBERT Christian Atonem. viii. 308 The death of Christ was the expression of Divine love.
1860 C. H. SPURGEON New Park St. Pulpit VI. 181-9 When Adam sinned, though God was merciful, he
could not show love to one who had become a rebel; I mean—not the love of complacency—though
the love of benevolence never ceased for a moment.
1876 J. B. MOZLEY Serm. preached Univ. of Oxf. ii. 29 Love in the Gospel sense is that general virtue which
covers the motives.
1925 Woman's World (Chicago) Apr. 65/2 Teaching their children the love and fear of God and the joy of
tasks well done.
 1955 R. B. BRAITHWAITE Empiricist's View Relig. Belief 18 Unless a Christian's assertion that God is love
(agape)..be taken to declare his intention to follow an agapeistic way of life, he could be asked what is
the connexion between the assertion and the intention.
1978 I. B. SINGER Shosha xiv. 243 To me..you are my rebbe. Your every word is filled with wisdom and love
of God as well.
2002 N. DRURY Dict. Esoteric 295/1 In Sufism, total submission to Allah and love for him leads to the
attainment of spiritual truth.

3. Strong predilection, liking, or fondness (for something); devotion (to

something). With of, for (also †to, †unto); in Old English also with the
genitive.
†to give (also bear) love to: to be devoted or addicted to.

eOE tr. Bede Eccl. Hist. (Tanner) IV. xxviii. 362 Swa mycel getydnes & gelærednes to sprecenne & swa
mycel lufu godcundre lare [OE Corpus Oxf. swa mycel lufu to godcundre lare; L. tantus amor
persuadendi].
eOE KING ÆLFRED tr. Boethius De Consol. Philos. (Otho) xxxv. 101 Ne fo we no & [read on] ða bisna & on
ða bispel for ðara leasena spella lufan, ac forðæmðe we woldon mid gebecnan þa soðfæstnesse.
a1325 (▸c1250) Gen. & Exod. (1968) l. 4067 And for luue of ðis horeplage, Manie for-leten godes lage.
▸a1398 J. TREVISA tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 317 Also þe bere
loueþ hony most of ony þing, and he brekeþ trees & clymbeþ on trees for loue of hony combes.
a1500 (▸?a1425) tr. Secreta Secret. (Lamb.) 218 Philosophie is no more but loue of witte and cvnnynge.
1548 Hall's Vnion: Edward IV f. ccxxxviiv Blynde auarice and loue of money.
1611 M. SMITH in Bible (King James) Transl. Pref. 2 For the loue that he bare vnto peace.
1688 W. SMITH Future World II. i. 113 Take notice how sillily one man manageth his love of Money.
1726 POPE in tr. Homer Odyssey V. Postscr. 278 Let our love to Antiquity be ever so great.
1773 H. CHAPONE Lett. Improvem. Mind II. 32 The love of truth, and a real desire of improvement.
1839 W. H. AINSWORTH Jack Sheppard I. I. i. 7 Under the name, traced in charcoal, appeared the following
record of the poor fellow's fate, ‘Hung himsel in this rum for luv off licker’.
1877 W. E. GLADSTONE in 19th Cent. Nov. 547 The love of freedom itself is hardly stronger in England than
the love of aristocracy.
1887 T. FOWLER Princ. Morals II. i. 11 Among these primary desires should be specified the love of ease and
the love of occupation.
1888 C. PATMORE in B. Champneys Mem. (1900) II. iv. 43 When I was about fifteen my love for poetry
began to get the better of my love for science.
1911 I. M. PAGAN From Pioneer to Poet ii. 31 The burlesque Taurean is fat, thick-necked, gross and overfed
looking, and often has a great love of low comedy.
1952 ‘R. GORDON’ Doctor in House i. 9 His love for his old hospital, like one's affection for the youthful
homestead, increased steadily with the length of time he had been shot of it.
1987 E. FEINSTEIN Captive Lion iii. 64 Marina's interest in gypsies was part of her love of everything exotic.
2006 Vertical Dec. 72/2 Para-alpinists and climbers share a love of the environment and all that is steep.

4.
 a. An intense feeling of romantic attachment based on an attraction felt
by one person for another; intense liking and concern for another person,
typically combined with sexual passion. Cf. TRUE LOVE n. 1.

OE Old Eng. Hexateuch: Gen. (Claud.) xxix. 20 Iacob him hyrsumode þa seofan gear for Rachele, & hit
him þuhte feawa daga for þære lufe þe he to hyre hæfde [L. prae amoris magnitudine].
c1225 (▸?c1200) Hali Meiðhad (Bodl.) (1940) l. 479 (MED) Forte drahen his luue towart hire.
?a1300 Dame Sirith in G. H. McKnight Middle Eng. Humorous Tales (1913) 1 Reste neuede he non, Þe
loue wes so strong.
a1413 (▸c1385) CHAUCER Troilus & Criseyde (Pierpont Morgan) (1881) II. l. 667 This was a sodeyn loue,
how myght it be That she so lyghtly louede Troylus Right for þe firste syghte ye parde.
a1413 (▸c1385) CHAUCER Troilus & Criseyde (Pierpont Morgan) (1881) I. 508 Now art þow yn þe snare
That whilom Iapedest at loues peyne.
c1450 (▸?a1400) Wars Alexander (Ashm.) 226 (MED) Þe lede lawid in hire lofe as leme dose of gledis.
▸?a1513 W. DUNBAR Poems (1998) I. 101 I hard a merle with mirry notis sing A sang of lufe.
a1593 MARLOWE Hero & Leander (1598) I. 175 Where both deliberat, the loue is slight, Who euer lov'd, that
lov'd not at first sight?
1667 MILTON Paradise Lost IV. 750 Haile wedded Love, mysterious Law, true sourse Of human
ofspring.
1691 R. AMES (title of poem) The pleasures of love and marriage.
1738 J. HILDEBRAND Tryal of Conjugal Love i. 45 A Wife's Conjugal Love may..be try'd a little farther, than,
in Conscience, it ought to be.
1769 F. BROOKE Hist. Emily Montague II. cxx. 220 She opened to me all her heart on the subject of her love
for Rivers.
a1849 E. A. POE Annabel Lee in Coll. Wks. (1969) I. 477 We loved with a love that was more than love—I
and my Annabel Lee.
1872 O. LOGAN Get thee behind me, Satan! 272 The woman who dares to put her heart out of the question,
and without a thought of love to sell herself to a man whose material wealth she desires to share is—
to put it mildly—a trafficker.
1950 W. DURANT Age of Faith xxv. 702 At his court troubadours were encouraged to sing the joys and pains
of love.
1979 B. BAINBRIDGE Another Part of Wood vii. 133 Love does exist... All I know is it passes off.
2000 Daily Tel. 4 Apr. 15/2 Today, it seems obligatory that if you want to describe love you have to have
two people humping around in a bed.

b. An instance of being in love. Also in pl.: love affairs, amatory relations.

1561 T. HOBY tr. B. Castiglione Courtyer III. sig. Ii.i v M. Francis Petrarca, that writt so diuinlye his loues in
this oure tunge.
1589 G. PUTTENHAM Arte Eng. Poesie III. xxiii. 225 Nothing is so vnpleasant to a man, as to be encountred in
his chiefe affection, & specially in his loues.
1590 SPENSER Faerie Queene I. II. sig. B3 Like a young Squire, in loues and lusty hed His wanton daies that
euer loosely led.
 a1616 SHAKESPEARE Othello (1622) V. ii. 43 Oth. Thinke on thy sinnes. Des. They are loues I beare to
you.
1697 DRYDEN tr. Virgil Georgics IV, in tr. Virgil Wks. 137 All the Rapes of Gods, and ev'ry Love, From ancient
Chaos down to youthful Jove.
1738 SWIFT Compl. Coll. Genteel Conversat. 103 I suppose, the Colonel was cross'd in his first Love.
1767 R. BENTLEY Philodamus IV. ii. 42 Her loves with Bacchus, and her stellar wreath, Are allegorical, and
mean no more Than the song tells us.
1844 B. DISRAELI Coningsby III. VIII. ii. 202 The sweet pathos of their mutual loves.
1849 G. P. R. JAMES Woodman I. ii. 9 Tapestry..representing..the loves of Mars and Venus..did not in those
days at all shock the inhabitants of the nunnery.
1895 A. DOUGLAS Let. in H. M. Hyde Trials Oscar Wilde (1948) 360 There are several women in London
whose friendship with other women does carry a taint and a suspicion, simply because these women
are obviously ‘sapphic’ in their loves.
1933 D. THOMAS Let. ?21 Dec. (1987) 67 You..dwell, unhappily but unbrokenly, upon the passing of juvenile
loves.
1974 I. MURDOCH Sacred & Profane Love Machine 81 Oh my sweetikin, how can such a love as ours stop?
2003 Knoxville (Tennessee) News-Sentinel (Nexis) 20 June (Weekend section) 13 The Carrie-Jack
relationship doesn't have the spark of her past loves.

c. The motif of romantic love in imaginative literature.

1717 G. SEWELL Prol. in S. Centlivre Cruel Gift sig. A5v This is her first attempt in Tragick-Stuff; And here's
Intrigue, and Plot, and Love enough.
1781 JOHNSON Addison in Pref. Wks. Eng. Poets V. 46 The greatest weakness of the play is in the scenes of
love... Yet the Love is..intimately mingled with the whole action.
1860 MACAULAY William Pitt in Biogr. (2nd par.) This piece..is in some respects highly curious. There is no
love. The whole plot is political.
1892 Black & White 22 Oct. 476/1 [The] story turns..on murder and revenge, with a little love thrown in.
1932 B. L. SUZUKI Nōgaku 19 A romantic play (jo or katsuramono), in which the chief character is a woman
and the chief motive love.
1949 F. TOWERS Tea with Mr. Rochester (1952) 30 Must she also have a beautiful mind, to set her above
other people and make her so fastidious that she wouldn't even let one got to a cinema or read a book
with love in it?

5. Sexual desire or lust, esp. as a physiological instinct; amorous sexual

activity, sexual intercourse. Cf. to make love at Phrases 3a.

OE Old Eng. Martyrol. (Corpus Cambr. 196) 22 Nov. 254 On þære nyhte þa heo wæs ingelæded on þone
brydbur, þa sæde heo þam brydguman þæt heo gesawe engel of heofenum and se wolde hyne slean
myd færdeaðe, gif he hyre æfre onhryne myd unclænre lufon.
a1300 (▸a1250) Physiologus 514 In boke is ðe turtres lif writen o rime, Wu laȝelike ȝe holdeð luue al hire
lif-time.
▸a1387 J. TREVISA tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1874) V. 185 A ȝongelynge..þat hadde
 obleged hym self to the devel for þe love of a wenche.
c1480 (▸a1400) St. Vincent 13 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) II. 259 Fals erroure, &
lufe vnclene, & warldis dout als.
1567 in J. Cranstoun Satirical Poems Reformation (1891) I. iv. 28 Hir licherous luife, quhilk kindlit ouer
hait.
a1568 A. SCOTT Poems (1896) 27 A leddy als, for luf, to tak Ane propir page, hir tyme to pass.
1611 Bible (King James) Prov. vii. 18 Come, let vs take our fill of loue vntill the morning.
1697 DRYDEN tr. Virgil Georgics III, in tr. Virgil Wks. 99 Six Seasons use; but then release the Cow, Unfit for
Love, and for the lab'ring Plough.
1762 LD. KAMES Elements Crit. I. ii. 60 Animal love when exerted into action by natural impulse singly, is
neither social nor selfish.
?1775 J. LAMB Poet. Pieces on Several Occasions 62 Lustful Love, inflamed had his Dame, She for him
burn'd with an unlawful flame.
1828 J. STARK Elements Nat. Hist. II. 272 Both sexes, in the season of love, have the habit of calling one
another by striking rapidly with their mandibles on the wood.
1860 W. WALLACE Epicureanism vii. 131 It is not an unbroken succession of drinking feasts and of revelry,
not the pleasures of sexual love,..which produce a pleasant life.
1925 W. LEWIS Foxes' Case in Cal. Mod. Lett. Oct. 77 Ectogenetic birth will shortly supersede the present
brutal rigmarole of animal love.
1965 New Statesman 1 Oct. 493/3 A straggly-bearded, myopic agitator earning a free night of love with
Annie Girardot's golden-hearted whore.
1990 Boston Phoenix 27 Apr. B1/1 In an age when the lingering concept of free love collides with the call
for safe sex, S/M is as popular as ever.

6.

a. A person who is beloved of another, esp. a sweetheart (cf. TRUE LOVE n.

4a); also (rare) in extended use of animals. Cf. LADY-LOVE n. 1.

c1225 (▸?c1200) St. Katherine (Bodl.) (1981) 557 He is mi lif ant mi luue.
c1400 (▸c1378) LANGLAND Piers Plowman (Laud 581) (1869) B. IV. 49 Rose, Reginoldes loue [c1400 A text
lemmon].
c1450 (▸1369) CHAUCER Bk. Duchess (Fairf. 16) (1871) l. 91 And where my lord my loue be deed?
▸a1470 MALORY Morte Darthur (Winch. Coll. 13) (1990) I. 359 He is my fyrste love and he shal be the laste.
a1593 MARLOWE Passionate Sheepheard in Englands Helicon (1600) sig. Aav Come liue with mee, and be
my loue.
1600 SHAKESPEARE Merchant of Venice IV. i. 274 Whether Bassanio had not once a loue .
c1606 G. WITHER Love Sonn. iii, in Descr. Love (1638) C 4 In Summer-time to Medley My love and I would
goe.
1689 N. LEE Princess of Cleve I. iii. 10 With the Curtains half drawn, My Love and I lay.
1697 DRYDEN tr. Virgil Æneis VIII, in tr. Virgil Wks. 442 One Heifar who had heard her Love complain,
Roar'd from the Cave.
1729 H. CAREY Poems (ed. 3) 135 I'll strip the Garden and the Grove, To make a Garland for my Love.
1772 W. JONES Poems 43 Told to their smiling loves their am'rous tales.
 1792 J. WOLCOT Wks. III. 259 Her feather'd Partner..Now for his loves pursues his airy way, And now with
food returns.
1819 SCOTT Bride of Lammermoor ii, in Tales of my Landlord 3rd Ser. III. 19 It is best to be off wi' the old
love Before you be on wi' the new.
a1822 SHELLEY Charles I v, in Wks. (1870) II. 394 A widow bird sate mourning for her love Upon a wintry
bough.
1870 F. W. H. MYERS Poems 92 She and her love,—how dimly has she seen him Dark in a dream and windy
in a wraith!
1900 J. M. BARRIE Tommy & Grizel xxv. 303 There are poor dogs of men..who open their letters from their
loves, knowing exactly what will be in them.
1926 T. HARDY Coll. Poems (ed. 2) 126 When I've overgot The world somewhat, When things cost not Such
stress and strain, Is soon enough..To tell my Love I am come again.
1955 R. S. THOMAS Song at Year's Turning 31 Your love is dead, lady, your love is dead.
1995 Independent 11 Feb. 33/3 When we celebrate St Valentine's on Tuesday, I am hoping my love will
join me in a Waggle Dance.

b. As a form of address to one's beloved and (in modern informal use)

also familiarly to a close acquaintance or (more widely) anyone whom one
encounters. Frequently with possessive adjective.

c1405 (▸c1387–95) CHAUCER Canterbury Tales Prol. (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 672 Ful loude he soong com
hyder loue [1477 Glasgow my loue] to me.
a1500 (▸?c1300) Bevis of Hampton (Chetham) l. 2019 Beuys, loue dere, Ryde nat fro me in no manere!
1600 Wisdome Doctor Dodypoll III. sig. D4 Why loue, doubt you that?
1600 Wisdome Doctor Dodypoll III. sig. E4 Thou art growne passing strange, my loue.
1642 Fourtie Articles against W. Lang 8 That the said Lang doth affirm that the Book of Canticles in the
Old Testament was but a kind of baudy Song, My Love, my Dove, my faire one, &c.
1757 D. GARRICK Isabella IV. 35 No more, my Love, complaining of the past, We lose the present Joy.
1795 S. T. COLERIDGE Lines at Shurton Bars 85 How oft, my Love! with shapings sweet I paint the moment,
we shall meet!
1812 T. MOORE Young May Moon in Irish Melodies III. V. 18 The young May moon is beaming, love.
1860 C. PATMORE Faithful for Ever III. ii. 180 And there's another thing, my Love, I wish you'd show you
don't approve.
1895 A. W. PINERO Second Mrs. Tanqueray III. 104 Paula love, I fancied you and Aubrey were a little more
friendly.
1920 ‘K. MANSFIELD’ Let. 17 Jan. (1993) III. 182 You were not made of steel. Oh, my Love, was I so heavy?
1957 J. BRAINE Room at Top vi. 52 T'lad's cum to enjoy hisen, 'aven't you, luv?
1966 New Yorker 29 Jan. 22/3 ‘Sit over here, love,’ he said as another actress entered.
1968 A. CLARKE Darkened Room x. 126 The nurses called me ‘Luv’ or ‘Dear’.
1991 J. CARTWRIGHT To 1 Landlady: Stuff it man. (To customer.) Yes love can I help you?
2002 C. NEWLAND Snakeskin ii. 23 The chance was too good to miss, luv.

†c. In reference to illicit relations: a paramour or lover (applied to both

men and women). Obs.

c1405 (▸c1385) CHAUCER Knight's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 1448 Ne neuere wol I be no loue ne wyf.
?a1425 (▸c1400) Mandeville's Trav. (Titus C.xvi) (1919) 103 Whan þei [sc. Amazons] wil haue ony
companye of man..þan þei [have] here loues [?a1425 Egerton lemmans; Fr. amys] þat vsen hem.
1462 W. BARKER in Paston Lett. & Papers (2004) II. 277 He bydeth but a tyme þat he myght gete a summe
of money to-geders..and to gon ther-with with a love of his soiornyng as yette in Hokehold.
1565 T. COOPER Thesaurus at Siue Wheather this be his wyfe, or his loue, great with childe she is by
Pamphilus.
1602 SHAKESPEARE Merry Wives of Windsor III. v. 73 To search for his wiues loue.
1613 S. PURCHAS Pilgrimage 768 They haue one wife, many loues.
1636 H. BLOUNT Voy. Levant 14 Each Basha hath as many or like more Catamites, which are their serious
loves; for their Wives are used..for reputation.

d. gen. An object of love; a person who or thing which is loved, the

beloved (of); a passion, preoccupation. See also first love n. (d) at FIRST
2
adj., adv., and n. Special uses 2b.

1734 POPE Ess. Man: Epist. IV 180 The Lover, and the Love, of Human kind.
1754 EARL OF CHATHAM Lett. to Nephew (1804) iv. 28 Make yourself the love and admiration of the world.
1818 BYRON Childe Harold: Canto IV clxx. 88 In the dust The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid, The
love of millions.
1887 W. CARLETON Farm Legends 94 He vaulted 'mongst the nation's honored sons; He was the love of all
the living ones.
1968 L. BLANCH Journey into Mind's Eye xii. 168 His last link with Princess Eliza Vorontzova who had
been the love of his youth, of his life, it was said.
1976 D. FRANCIS In Frame vi. 679 He'd missed weeks in the summer for his other love, which was sailing.
2000 N. BRAYBROOKE in ‘I. English’ Every Eye Pref. p. x His second love was sailing—but, there again, he
felt he could never be a crack helmsman.

e. colloq. A charming or delightful person or thing.

1814 J. AUSTEN Let. 23 Aug. (1995) 270 The Garden is quite a Love.
1831 COUNTESS GRANVILLE Let. 28 Feb. (1894) II. 91 A pretty, tiny daughter, whom my girls think a love.
1837 L. HUNT Blue-stocking Revels i, in Poet. Wks. (1844) 103 Such doves of Petitions, and loves of sweet
Pray'rs.
1841 S. WARREN Ten Thousand a-Year II. 75 He's a love of a man, pa, isn't he?
1864 W. H. AINSWORTH John Law I. Prol. vi. 76 Nankin has the tiniest teacups you ever beheld—perfect
loves!
1889 ‘R. BOLDREWOOD’ Robbery under Arms xxiv What a love of a chain!
1936 ‘N. BLAKE’ Thou Shell of Death xiii. 230 Ah, a dotey little love she was.
1970 Reno (Nevada) Evening Gaz. 19 May 32/1 ‘What a love of a place!’ exclaimed prospective bride Vicki
 Scrivner.
1972 A. BENNETT Getting On II. 36 Be a love, Geoff, and tell them a story.
2002 Sunday Mirror (Nexis) 17 Feb. 7 Winston, her bulldog, pads in from the next room... ‘Isn't he a
cutie, isn't he a love?’

7.

a. Now with capital initial. The personification of romantic or sexual

affection, usually portrayed as masculine, and more or less identified with
the Eros, Amor, or Cupid of Classical mythology (formerly sometimes
feminine, and capable of being identified with Venus). See also Phrases
6b.

c1325 in T. Wright Specimens Lyric Poetry (1842) xvi. 53 To love y putte pleyntes mo.
c1325 in G. L. Brook Harley Lyrics (1968) 50 (MED) To Loue, þat leflich is in londe, y tolde him..hou þis
hende haþ hent..on huerte þat myn wes.
a1425 (▸c1385) CHAUCER Troilus & Criseyde (1987) I. 353 For love bigan his fetheres so to lyme.
▸1435 R. MISYN tr. R. Rolle Fire of Love 102 Weil it is sayd in play: ‘luf gos before & ledis þe dawns.’
1566 W. PAINTER Palace of Pleasure I. xxxvii. f. 86v Notwithstanding dame Loue is so fauourable vnto me.
1598 SHAKESPEARE Love's Labour's Lost IV. iii. 356 Forerunne faire Loue, strewing her way with
flowers.
1667 MILTON Paradise Lost IV. 763 Here Love his golden shafts imploies, here lights His constant Lamp,
and waves his purple wings.
1697 D. BAKER Poems upon Several Occas. I. 5 Cruel Love..makes thy faithless Vows serve for a StoneTo
whet his bloody Darts upon.
1720 D. MANLEY Power of Love IV. 230 Love..had long owed him a Revenge for slighting and speaking
irreverently of his Power.
1770 F. GENTLEMAN Sultan V. i. 64 There is but one, one only pow'r, Almighty love, who could such tribute
claim.
1805 SCOTT Lay of Last Minstrel III. ii. 66 In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed; In war, he mounts the
warrior's steed.
1859 E. FITZGERALD tr. Rubáiyát Omar Khayyám lxxiii. 16 Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire.
1889 W. ALLINGHAM Life & Phantasy 7 Who could say that Love is blind? Piercing-sighted, he will find A
thousand subtle charms that lie Hid from every common eye.
1913 E. FERBER Roast Beef Medium x. 263 There shall be no running breathless, flushed, eager-eyed, to the
very gateway of Love's garden.
1952 Musical Q. 38 622 Death, using Love's arrows, causes tottering gammers and gaffers to become
youthfully enamoured of each other.
2001 A. SHAKAR Savage Girl 153 Then the chip in my left brain crunched all the data,..and I told him,
‘Awake: Love is calling you’.

b. In pl. Representations or personifications of Cupid; mythological gods

of love, or attendants of the goddess of love; figures or representations of
the god of love. Frequently with modifying word.
 1595 SPENSER Amoretti xvi, in Amoretti & Epithalamion sig. Bv Legions of loues with little wings did fly.
1608 B. JONSON Characters Two Royall Masques II. 12 A world of little Loues, and chast Desires, Do light
their [sc. the Muses'] beauties, with still mouing fires.
a1667 A. COWLEY Verses Several Occasions 14 in Wks. (1668) All around The little Loves that waited by,
Bow'd, and blest the Augurie.
1734 SWIFT Strephon & Cloe in Beautiful Young Nymph 10 The smiling Cyprian Goddess brings Her infant
Loves with purple Wings.
?1793 S. T. COLERIDGE Lines Autumnal Evening 49 A thousand Loves around her forehead fly; A thousand
Loves sit melting in her eye.
a1839 W. M. PRAED Poems (1864) II. 63 Where'er her step in beauty moves, Around her fly a thousand
loves.
1866 A. C. SWINBURNE Sapphics in Poems & Ballads 206 The Loves thronged sadly with hidden faces
Round Aphrodite.
a1891 A. PIKE Poems (1900) 52 Let all the Loves Fly round thy chariot, with sweet, low songs Murmuring
upon their lips.
1928 E. STRONG Art in Anc. Rome II. xii. 40 The little loves riding on panthers and donkeys..are examples
of that art of cælatura which aroused the enthusiasm of Pliny.
1966 Jrnl. Warburg & Courtauld Inst. 29 441 A great company of winged loves fly after her [sc. Venus].
1998 Early Music 26 253 In The Haddington Masque a month later, little Loves escort Cupid as his
torchbearers.

II. Senses relating to games of skill or chance.

†8. A game of chance of Italian origin in which one player holds up a

certain number of fingers, and another simultaneously guesses their
number; = MORRA n. Frequently in the play of love. Obs.
[Apparently after Middle French iouer à l'amour, lit. ‘to play at love’ (see quot. 1585), apparently a
folk-etymological alteration of iouer à la mourre to play morra (see MORRA n., and compare quot.
1653).]

1585 J. HIGGINS tr. Junius Nomenclator 297/2 Micare digitis,..iouer à l'amour,..a play vsed in Italy,..it is
called there, & in France and Spaine, the play of loue.
1611 R. COTGRAVE Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Mourre, the play of loue.
1653 T. URQUHART tr. Rabelais 1st Bk. Wks. xxii. 94 There he played..At love [Fr. a la mourre].
1725 N. BAILEY tr. Erasmus Colloq. 205 The Countrymens Play of holding up our Fingers (dimicatione
digitorum, i.e. the Play of Love).

9.

a. In various competitive games of skill, esp. tennis, squash, bridge, and

whist: no score, (a score of) nothing, nil. Frequently in various formulaic
expressions indicating the score of two contestants in a game (as fifteen
love, six love, etc.).
love-all: no score (yet) on either side (see also ALL adv. 10).
 [Perhaps originally developed from the expression for love at Phrases 1e. For a variety of other
suggestions see American Notes & Queries 2 (1963) 8–9, B. Oreström in B. Odenstedt & G. Persson
(eds.) Instead of Flowers: Papers in Honour of Mats Rydén on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday
(1989) 175–7.]

1742 E. HOYLE Short Treat. Game Whist i. 13 If your Adversary is 6 or 7 Love, and you are to lead.
1780 Gentleman's Mag. 50 322/2 We are not told how, or by what means Six love comes to mean Six to
nothing.
1797 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 380/2 As the games are won, so they are marked and called; as one game love,
two games to one, &c.
1816 Jrnl. Cork. Hist. & Archaeol. Soc. (1901) 7 151 Mr Cashell was eight to love of the first game.
1885 Pall Mall Gaz. 2 Mar. 10/2 In the Rugby game Northampton beat Coventry by a try to love.
1898 EARL OF SUFFOLK et al. Encycl. Sport II. 242/1 The marker's..duty is to call the game..from the start at
‘love all’... ‘Love’, in the game of rackets, as in other games, signifies nothing.
1906 W. DALTON ‘Saturday’ Bridge ii. 53 When you hold six or more cards of a black suit, thoroughly
established, and one other card of entry, No Trumps should always be declared at the score of love.
1929 M. C. WORK Compl. Contract Bridge p. xv Any advice given for bidding, raising, etc., applies when
the score is ‘love-all’.
1974 Los Angeles Times 20 Sept. III. 1/1 When you get beat six games to love, it's called ‘The Bagel’.
1995 S. E. GRACE in M. Lowry Sursum Corda! I. 624 ‘Love fifteen’ and ‘advantage out’ are scoring terms in
tennis.

b. Tennis. to love: (with reference to a game) with one player winning no

points; (with reference to a set) with one player winning no games.

1880 Truth 12 Aug. 198/2 A server may be deadly if his service comes off on the first try; and if it does so
for a few strokes, he wins his game nearly to ‘love’.
1925 Country Life 11 July 73/1 Mr. Jacob..lost the third set to love after winning a long second.
1996 Daily Express 26 June 68/3 Serving for the first set he was broken disastrously to love.
2013 M. LAWSON Deaths viii. 257 Tom takes the first set to love.

†10. A variant of the game of euchre (EUCHRE n.). Obs.

1886 Euchre 41 Slam, Love, or Skunk.

III. Other uses.

†11. A thin crape or gauze material, formerly worn when in mourning; a

border of this. Obs.
See also love-hood n., love ribbon n. at Compounds 6, and love veil n. at Compounds 6.

1613 Edinb. Test. XLVII. 359 Tua elnis callit luf at aucht s. the elne.
1666 in W. M. Myddelton Chirk Castle Accts. 8 Jan. (1908) I. 140 1 pinner 2s 6d, 1 crape hood 3s 6d, 2
peeces of love 6d.
 1751 London Daily Advertiser 21 Dec. in Notes & Queries 1st Ser. 10 206 A black velvet cloak with a love
coarsely run round it.
1825 M. M. SHERWOOD Lady of Manor (ed. 2) II. x. 178 He was dressed in white, having a sash of black
love.

12.

†a. Traveller's joy, Clematis vitalba; = love-bind n. at Compounds 7. Obs.

1640 J. PARKINSON Theatrum Botanicum 384 In English of most country people where it groweth [called]
Honestie; and the Gentlewomen call it Love, but Gerard coyned that name of the Travelours joy.
1657 S. PURCHAS Theatre Flying-insects I. xv. 95 Bees gather of these flowers following..In July..Love.

b. Austral. A twining plant, Comesperma volubile (family Polygalaceae),

having narrow leaves and masses of bright purple flowers. Also love
creeper.

1874 J. LINDLEY & T. MOORE Treasury Bot. Suppl. Love, a name used in Tasmania for Comesperma
volubile.
1894 J. K. ARTHUR Kangaroo & Kauri 26 Among Australian flowering plants, ‘Love’ is the pet name
bestowed on a most beautiful little creeper bearing flowers of a lovely blue.
1942 C. BARRETT Austral. Wild Flower Bk. 45 The stems twist spirally and it is difficult to separate the love
creeper from its supporting plant without breaking or cutting them.
1947 A. H. GARNSEY Romance Huon River 88 Tangled masses of the blue creeper known as ‘love’.
2004 Mornington Penins. (Austral.) Leader (Nexis) 9 Nov. 42 They uncovered several notable native
plants that had been growing timidly in the shade of the dominant weeds including..love creeper.

PHRASES

P1. In prepositional phrases, chiefly with for.

a. In asseverations and imprecations.

(a) for the love of: for the sake of, on account of. Frequently in emphatic
declarations and exclamations, as for the love of God (see also for (also
†fore) God's love at GOD n. and int. Phrases 1b). †Also for my (our, etc.)
love: for my (our, etc.) sake.
In later use only when some sense of the literal meaning is implied (chiefly in exclamations); in early use
often merely idiomatic, corresponding to classical Latin causā, gratiā for the sake of (used both with a
noun in the genitive, e.g. honōris causā, honoris gratiā for the sake of honour, and with a pronominal
adjective, e.g. meā causā, meā gratiā for my sake, tuā causā, tuā gratiā for your sake); cf. also classical
Latin pro amōre, used with a possessive adjective, e.g. prō amōre nostro for our love, and in post-
classical Latin also with a noun in the genitive, e.g. prō amōre studiorum for the love of studies (6th
cent.). With for the love of God cf. post-classical Latin Dei causa (late 2nd cent. in Tertullian), pro Dei
amore (6th cent.). In Old English the noun was often in pl.
 eOE KING ÆLFRED tr. Boethius De Consol. Philos. (Otho) xxii. 51 Ic wille [þe oðewan] forlustlice for ðinum
lufum [L. tui causa libenter].
OE Blickling Homilies 23 Eal þis he þrowode for ure lufan & hælo.
a1225 (▸c1200) Vices & Virtues (1888) 7 (MED) I bidde and warni, for ðe luue of gode and for ȝuer lieue
saule, þat ȝie hatien..ðes awerȝhede senne.
a1400 (▸a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 14683 (MED) For þin dedes gode..We wil noght stan þe..Bot for
þine werkes gain þe lau And for þe luue o þi missau.
▸a1470 MALORY Morte Darthur (Winch. Coll. 13) (1990) II. 891 We shall destroy all the knyghtes of kyng
Arthurs..for the love of sir Galahad.
c1480 (▸a1400) St. Placidus 163 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) II. 74 Sa hyme, for þe
luf of me, þat in my nam he baptis þe.
1548 Hall's Vnion: Henry V f. lxii Required the Englishe lordes for the loue of God that the truce might
continue.
1589 J. JANE in R. Hakluyt Princ. Navigations III. 790 The Sauages came to the Island..and tore the two
vpper strakes, and caried them away onely for the loue of the iron in the boords.
1598 SHAKESPEARE Love's Labour's Lost V. ii. 826 Impose some seruice on me for thy Loue.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Twelfth Night (1623) II. iii. 82 For the loue o'God peace.
1661 W. AMES Good Counsell & Advice 12 Let none have occasion to say, that for the love of your goods, your
liberty or your lives, any of you have forsaken the way of truth.
1710 SWIFT Jrnl. to Stella 8 Dec. (1948) I. 115 I begged Mr. Harley for the love of God to take some care about
it.
1786 S. HENLEY tr. W. Beckford Arabian Tale 96 For the love of Mahomet, my dear Fakreddin, have done!
1859 TENNYSON Vivien in Idylls of King 115 A Table Round, That was to be, for love of God and man And
noble deeds, the flower of all the world.
1882 Cent. Mag. Feb. 488/1 For the love of heaven do something for me or I'll die, so I will.
1913 J. LONDON God of his Fathers 69 For the love of your mother, hold your say, man.
1941 E. LINKLATER Man on my Back iii. 41 Can you not see that bloody machine-gun there? And for the love
of God put your sights up.
1960 G. DURRELL Zoo in my Luggage (1965) viii. 173 Don't, for the love of Allah, let her get into the china
department.
1999 D. MITCHELL Ghostwritten 340 ‘Oh for the love of God you two,’ muttered John.

(b) colloq. for the love of Mike [probably showing euphemistic

4
substitution of the male forename Mike (compare MIKE n. ) for God] : an
exclamation of exasperation or surprise; ‘for goodness' sake!’

1901 S. CRANE in Home Mag. N.Y. Jan. 77/2 ‘For the love of Mike, madam, what ails you?’ he spluttered.
1909 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald (Electronic text) 21 Dec. For the love of Mike, man, haven't you got a heart?
1922 J. JOYCE Ulysses III. xviii. [Penelope] 727 O move over your big carcass out of that for the love of Mike
listen to him.
1925 T. DREISER Amer. Trag. I. I. ix. 57 For de love o' Mike, will you listen to dat, now.
1934 J. BROPHY Waterfront i. 14 For the love of mike..shut those blasted windows.
1941 Penguin New Writing 8 91 Well, for the luvva Mike!
 1942 R.A.F. Jrnl. 3 Oct. 11 Tired? Well for the love of mike! What about me?
1957 A. MACNAB Bulls of Iberia xv. 181 For the love of Mike, let's hope he's brave.
1999 J. BURCHILL Married Alive xii. 181 ‘Why wasn't she wearing any fucking clothes!’ I scream at the top of
my voice. ‘Because she was under a waterfall, for the love of Mike—’.

(c) for the love of Pete: see PETE n. 1.

b. for (also †of) all loves (also † upon all loves, † of all love):
expressing a strong appeal or entreaty. Similarly (and now chiefly) for
love's sake.

a1400 (▸a1325) Cursor Mundi (Trin. Cambr.) l. 20380 Whi wepestou, what is þe? For alle loues [a1400
Vesp. For felaured, a1400 Gött. For felauschip] telle now me.
c1450 (▸c1400) Sowdon of Babylon (1881) 1587 (MED) Sir, for alle loues, Lete me thy prisoneres seen!
1565 T. COOPER Thesaurus Amabo..Of felowshippe: of all loues: I pray the: as euer thou wilte doe me good
turne.
1600 SHAKESPEARE Midsummer Night's Dream II. ii. 160 Speake, of all loues. I swoune almost with
feare.
1618 J. USSHER Let. in R. Parr Life J. Usher (1686) Coll. xxxiii. 64 I do intreat you of all Love, to look over the
first Edition.
1624 R. MONTAGU Immediate Addresse 185 She..intreateth him that was worshipped vpon the Altar, of all
loves, mercies, and works of wonder, to restore her vnto her health.
a1627 T. MIDDLETON Chast Mayd in Cheape-side (1630) III. 31 O sweet Father, for Loues sake pittie me.
c1646 in 2nd Rep. Royal Comm. Hist. MSS (1874) 87/1 [10l.] which I desire you of all love to pay upon sight
of this my letter.
1655 J. S. tr. B. della Rovere Phillis of Scyros III. iv. 63 For loves sake, doe not press me to relate So long a
story now.
1748 S. RICHARDSON Clarissa IV. li. 257 For your own honour's sake, as well as for love's sake, join with me.
1793 C. SMITH Old Manor House IV. viii. 196 Madam..begged him of all love to leave the country for fear of
accidents.
1829 W. WHEWELL in J. M. Douglas Life & Corr. W. Whewell (1881) 133 Beg her of all love to establish
herself in a more collegiate part of Cambridge.
1871 E. S. P. WARD Silent Partner iv. 86 Here a minute, for love's sake, Catty.
1906 B. CARMAN Pipes of Pan 51 Gentle spirit, grieve not so, for love's sake!
1925 A. LOWELL Sword Blades & Poppy Seeds 132 Christine clung to him with sobbing cries, Pleading for
love's sake that he leave her not.
1973 P. O'BRIAN HMS Surprise iv. 62 Am I in childbed, for all love, that I should be plagued, smothered,
destroyed with caudle?
1992 Ottawa Citizen (Nexis) 8 Sept. D8 Buckle up, for love's sake!

c. for love: by reason of love (often placed in opposition to pecuniary

considerations). Frequently in to marry for love.
 ?1529 R. HYRDE tr. J. L. Vives Instr. Christen Woman I. xvi. sig. T. ij They that marie for loue, shall leade
their lyfe in sorowe.
1791 J. BOSWELL Life Johnson anno 1776 II. 45 [Johnson] It is commonly a weak man who marries for love.
1868 Sat. Rev. 14 Mar. 340/2 It is only the old-fashioned sort, not girls of the period pur sang, that marry
for love.
1946 G. HOPKINS tr. F. Mauriac Woman of Pharisees ix. 100 The dead woman was still in his eyes a heroine
who might have died for love but would never have been false to her plighted word.
2005 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 6 Oct. 43/2 Lavransdatter′s..plot might be summarized as the story of a Daddy's girl
who refuses Daddy's choice of a husband and marries for love.

d. for love or money: at any price, by any means. (Chiefly in negative

contexts.)

[OE Blickling Homilies 43 Ne wandige na se mæssepreost..ne for feo, ne for nanes mannes lufon.
c1400 (▸c1378) LANGLAND Piers Plowman (Laud 581) (1869) B. I. 101 And neuer leue hem for loue ne for
lacchyng of syluer.
a1450 (▸?a1300) Richard Coer de Lyon (Caius) l. 1484 in K. Brunner Mittelengl. Vers-roman über Richard
Löwenherz (1913) 159 Neyþer ffor loue, neyther ffor eye.]
?1576 A. HALL Let. touchyng Priuate Quarell sig. G.iii My Lords Balife wil haue carts for loue or money.
1590 C. S. Briefe Resol. Right Relig. 18 Then should not men eyther for loue or money haue pardons.
1609 T. DEKKER Guls Horne-bk. sig. E3v If you can (either for loue or money) prouide your selfe a lodging by
the water side.
1691 T. SHADWELL Scowrers II. i. 11 This lewd Cozen of ours..has had all the women in Town that are to be had
for Love or Money.
1712 SWIFT Jrnl. to Stella 7 Aug. (1948) II. 553 No more Ghosts or Murders now for Love or Money.
1751 T. SMOLLETT Peregrine Pickle II. lxxxvi. 251 I'll be revenged of you, if there be a man to be had for love or
money.
1837 F. PALGRAVE Merchant & Friar (1844) i. 18 Any person who, for love or money, might be induced to
take the letter in his charge.
1869 F. A. MARCH Compar. Gram. Anglo-Saxon Lang. Pref. iv He let me..use..Anglo-Saxon texts not
elsewhere to be had for love or money.
1928 Times 30 Aug. 8/4 It appears to be impossible to get a hold of a useful rabbit-chasing ferret, for love or
money.
1966 H. DAVIES New London Spy (1967) 93 Gigolos are unobtainable in London for love or money, but
unemployed actors and male models may be had by the desperate.
1997 C. B. DIVAKARUNI Mistress of Spices 248 You couldn't buy them from a dealer, not for love or money.

e. for love: (a) without stakes being wagered, for nothing (applied to the
practice of playing a competitive game for the pleasure of playing); (b) (in
extended use) for pleasure rather than profit (colloq.).

1678 S. BUTLER Hudibras: Third Pt. III. i. 58 For these, at Beast, and L'hombre, [you] wooe, And play for
 Love, and Money too.
1813 Sporting Mag. 41 296 A match of..single-stick, was played..for what is technically termed Love and a
Belly-full.
1823 C. LAMB New Year's Eve in Elia 63 I play over again for love, as the gamesters phrase it, games, for
which I once paid so dear.
1843 DICKENS Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) xxxii. 383 Mrs. Todgers..proposed that..they should play for ‘love’.
1879 H. C. MERIVALE Lady of Lyons i. 4 Points be bothered, I plays for love.
1930 Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 22 Oct. 8/3 She would be surprised to know that those games [sc.
poker and twenty-one] were played for love.
1958 G. GREENE Our Man in Havana (1962) 154 He really does all this for love. You see, I saved his life once.
a1969 J. KEROUAC Visions of Cody (1992) 12 Jack Kerouac didn't write this book for money, he wrote it for
love, he gave it away to the world.
2007 Northern Miner (Austral.) (Nexis) 30 Jan. 7 They were disappointed they were only playing ‘for love’
because scores wouldn't be officially registered.

P2. In prepositional phrases with in, into, out of.

a. to fall (or †yfall, also †be taken, caught) in love: to become

enamoured; (in extended use) to become passionately attached to, dote on.
Frequently with with (in Old English with genitive of person). Also in early
use †to yfall (also be brought) into love's dance.
With on in quot. OE cf. ON prep. 23.

[Compare classical Latin in amorem incidere, Middle French tomber en amour (1538; French tomber
amoureux (1696)).]

OE tr. Apollonius of Tyre (1958) i. 2 Þa ða se fæder þohte hwam he hi mihte healicost forgifan, þa gefeol his
agen mod on hyre lufe mid unrihtre gewilnunge [L. pater..incidit in amorem filiae suae].
c1500 (▸?a1437) Kingis Quair (1939) xlv So ferr ifallyng into lufis dance.
?1515 Hyckescorner (de Worde) sig. A.v Than in to loues daunce we were brought.
c1515 LD. BERNERS tr. Bk. Duke Huon of Burdeux (1882–7) xlviii. 162 He was taken in loue.
1530 J. PALSGRAVE Lesclarcissement 544/2 I shall fall in love with her.
1569 R. GRAFTON Chron. I. iv. 37 Locryne fell in great phancy and loue with a faire Damosell.
1580 J. LYLY Euphues & his Eng. (new ed.) f. 63v Of which water who so drinketh shall be caught in loue.
1596 SPENSER Second Pt. Faerie Queene IV. VI. Argum. sig. E8v He sees her face; doth fall in loue, and soone
from her depart.
1606 G. W. tr. Justinus Hist. XLIII. 134 With the pleasantnesse of which, they were so taken in loue, that
[etc.].
1675 J. BUNYAN Light for Them that sit in Darkness 171 Can you behold a Crucified Christ and not Bleed, and
not Mourn, and not fall in Love with him?
1724 M. DAVYS Reform'd Coquet 165 You are the first Woman under Thirty that ever fell in love with a grey
Beard.
1768 F. BURNEY Early Jrnls. & Lett. (1988) I. 25 A young lady of fashion..has fallen in love with my cousin.
1785 E. INCHBALD Appearance is against Them I. ii. 11 You are a fellow that falls in love with every face you
see.
 1833 T. S. FAY Crayon Sketches II. 7 The most wretchedly romantic youth that ever fell in love..and turned
his face moonwards.
1887 H. R. HAGGARD Jess iv. 31 John Niel was no chicken, nor very likely to fall in love with the first pretty
face he met.
1928 Daily Express 21 Feb. 9/2 There is a suggestion that he has fallen in love with a ‘shiksa’ (a Christian
girl).
1969 E. CLEAVER Post-prison Writings 23 I fell in love with the Black Panther Party immediately upon my
first encounter with it.
1999 S. ORBACH Impossibility of Sex (2000) 170 She feared that Charles and Maria would really hit if off;
they would fall in love again, want to keep the baby, shut her out.

b. in love (with): enamoured (of), filled with love (for); (in extended
use) very fond (of), much addicted (to). In quot. a1398: †in heat (obs.). See
also mad in love at MAD adv. 2b and madly in love at MADLY adv. 2a.
[With the spec. use in quot. a1398 perhaps compare Middle French en ameur, Middle French, French
en amour (of an animal) in heat (15th cent.), which apparently originally showed the reflex of an
unattested post-classical Latin variant of classical Latin hūmor arising by folk-etymological association
with classical Latin amor.]

▸a1398 J. TREVISA tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 146v Whanne þe swan
is in loue, sche secheþ the female and plesiþ hire wiþ byclippinge of þe necke.
?1507 W. DUNBAR Tua Mariit Wemen (Rouen) in Poems (1998) I. 46 He is for ladyis in luf a right lusty
schadow.
1577 B. GOOGE tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry I. f. 5 He would talke..of the stories of the Scripture, so
sweetely..as I was woonderfully in loue with him.
1581 G. PETTIE tr. S. Guazzo Ciuile Conuersat. (1586) III. 140 A woman cannot possibly doe any thing yt may
make her husband more in love with her, then to play the good huswife.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623) II. i. 76 I was in loue with my bed.
1664 S. BUTLER Hudibras: Second Pt. II. i. 20 Quoth she, Y' have almost made m' in love With that, which did
my pitty move.
1690 J. LOCKE Ess. Humane Understanding IV. xvii. 347 He that believes, without having any Reason for
believing, may be in love with his own Fansies.
1728 J. GAY Beggar's Opera I. x. 15 What, is the fool in love in earnest then?
1797 M. ROBINSON Walsingham III. xlviii. 19 She is in love with you, my noble fellow.
1828 T. B. MACAULAY Hallam's Constit. Hist. in Edinb. Rev. Sept. 113 Its conduct, we are told, made the
excellent Falkland in love with the very name of parliament.
1881 L. B. WALFORD Dick Netherby xvii. 213 He was not himself in love.
1896 A. E. HOUSMAN Shropshire Lad xviii. 25 Oh, when I was in love with you, Then I was clean and brave.
1911 M. BEERBOHM Zuleika Dobson iii. 28 Her soul was as a flower in its opetide. She was in love.
1941 P. HAMILTON Hangover Square II. i. 52 He was head over heels in love with her as soon as he had a
moment to be near her.
1969 J. MCPHEE Levels of Game 10 He is in love with his work. He knows the exact height and tensile
strength of the corporate ladder.
1996 Rolling Stone 18 Apr. 80/1 They trudge dutifully through the tacky clichés of legal eagles in love.
c. out of love (with): not or no longer in love (with); (in extended use)
disenchanted or disgusted (with).

1577 A. GOLDING tr. J. Calvin Serm. Epist. Ephesians xli. f. 292 Thou bee so farre out of loue with thy sonne
[Fr. tu es si desbordé contre ton fils], that thou art vnwylling too see him.
1581 G. PETTIE tr. S. Guazzo Ciuile Conuersat. (1586) I. 10 Hee seemeth either too farre in loue with himselfe,
or to farre out of loue with others.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623) IV. iv. 202 I should haue scratch'd out your vnseeing
eyes, To make my Master out of loue with thee.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Measure for Measure (1623) III. i. 173 I am so out of loue with life.
1680 E. FOWLER Libertas Evangelica II. vii. 80 Atonement is..a most effectual means, to this farther End, the
making us out of love with Sin.
1722 D. DEFOE Relig. Courtship I. i. 5 What's the matter, that you are so out of love with the World all on a
sudden?
1753 S. RICHARDSON Hist. Sir Charles Grandison III. xi. 83 Lord W.'s animosity to my father made him out of
love with his name.
1796 S. LEE Almeyda IV. i. 52 I, like thee, Grow out of love with reason.
1814 M. EDGEWORTH Patronage I. ix. 278 Bellamy tells me the strangest story of her having been, since I left
London, in love and out of love with John Falconer.
1867 A. CARY Bishop's Son x. 192 Perhaps every man who is out of love thinks pretty much after this fashion
of his friend who is in love.
1890 J. TODHUNTER Sicilian Idyll I. 8 Hope shuns me: I am out of love with life.
1914 B. CARMAN Earth Deities 72 Whatever can have come his way To put him out of love to-day?
1955 R. CAMPBELL in E. W. Tedlock D. Thomas (1960) I. 45 He was never out of love with his beautiful wife
and muse, Caitlin.
1992 A. V. ROBERTS Morning's Gate xvi. 282 In and out of love with amazing regularity and unflagging
enthusiasm, Polly was passionate about most things.

d. to fall out of love (with): to cease to be in love (with); (in extended

use) to become disenchanted or disgusted (with).

1596 J. HARINGTON New Disc. Metamorph. Ajax sig. Ciiijv (I heard of a truth, that a great Lady that loued
Parsnips very well, after she had heard how they grew, could neuer abide them) and I would be loath,
to cause any to fall out of loue with so good a dish.
a1653 H. BINNING Serm. in Wks. (1735) 284/2 God never begins to be pleasant and lovely to a Soul, til it
begins to fall out of Love with itself, and grow lothsome in its own Eyes.
1701 R. CALDER Schola Sepulchri 38 The belief of the Resurrection will teach us to fall out of Love with the
World,..there is nothing in it but Vanity and Miserie.
1856 Littell's Living Age 5 July 34/2 No man falls out of love so safely as a man who falls in love with a
beauty.
1877 Catholic World July 530/1 He was always falling in love with any pretty face that struck his fancy, and
then just as easily falling out of love with an unwounded heart.
1915 Amer. Anthropologist 17 601 Despite our ingenuity, we do grow up, we grow old, we fall in love, we fall
 out of love.
2002 Times 11 Feb. I. 13/2 There are signs that voters have fallen out of love with the party.

†e. in the love of: beloved by. Frequently in the love of God. Obs.

1631 J. WEEVER Anc. Funerall Monuments 417 He also departed this world, in the loue of all good men.
a1635 R. SIBBES Light from Heaven (1638) III. 54 I know I am in the love of Christ: these are favours that hee
bestowes onely upon his owne.
1647 S. RICHARDSON Saints Desire Ep. Ded., sig. )(3 The people of God are in the love of God.
1664 W. SMITH Briefe Answer unto Shetinah 28 We are in the love of God, and have fervent love to him, and
one another.

P3. With to make.

a. to make love [after Old Occitan far amor (13th cent.), Middle French, French faire
l'amour (16th cent.; 1622 with reference to sexual intercourse), or Italian far l'amore] .

(a) To pay amorous attention; to court, woo. Frequently with to. Also in
extended use. Now somewhat arch.

1567 G. FENTON tr. M. Bandello Certaine Tragicall Disc. f. 155v The attire of a Cortisan, or woman makynge
loue [Fr. femme qui fait l'Amour].
1580 J. LYLY Euphues & his Eng. (new ed.) f. 34v A Phrase nowe there is which belongeth to your Shoppe
boorde, that is to make loue.
1600 SHAKESPEARE Midsummer Night's Dream I. i. 107 Demetrius..Made loue to Nedars daughter.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Hamlet (1623) V. ii. 58 Why man, they did make loue to this imployment.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Macbeth (1623) III. i. 125 Thence it is, That I to your assistance doe make loue.
1663 A. COWLEY Hymn to Light ii Thou golden Shower of a true Jove! Who does in thee descend, and Heav'n
to Earth make love!
1695 W. CONGREVE Love for Love IV. i. 70 Nay, Mr. Tattle, If you make Love to me, you spoil my design, for I
intended to make you my Confident.
1712 J. ADDISON Spectator No. 517. ¶2 The Widow Lady whom he had made Love to.
1768 L. STERNE Sentimental Journey I. 79 You have been making love to me all this while.
1784 R. BAGE Barham Downs II. 318 You..may make love, and play your pitty patties.
1829 W. COBBETT Advice to Young Men iv. §181 It is an old saying, ‘Praise the child, and you make love to the
mother’.
a1845 T. HOOD Poems (1846) I. 213 Oh there's nothing in life like making love.
1860 Sat. Rev. 9 306 How often..do we make love to the charms of cousins and avuncular expectations.
1887 W. BESANT World Went xiv. 112 He would crack the crown of any man who ventured to make love to his
girl.
1906 H. GREEN At Actors' Boarding House 209 I thought I'd die laughing at his making love..and me with a
husband doing his bit back in Auburn.
1927 L. MAYER Just between us Girls vii. 43 Honestly those nobilities can make love divinely.
1948 W. S. MAUGHAM Catalina (1958) ii. 18 Her lover Diego no longer came to the window at night to make
 love to her through the iron grille.
1972 B. EVERITT Cold Front v. 38 ‘Are we conversing or making love?’.. ‘Let's go into the slow lane for a
minute.’
1991 S. CISNEROS Woman Hollering Creek 153 Ay! To make love in Spanish, in a manner as intricate and
devout as la Alhambra.

(b) orig. U.S. To engage in sexual intercourse, esp. considered as an act of

love. Frequently with to, with.

1927 J. S. BOLAN Deposition in L. Schlissel 3 Plays Mae West (1997) 218 Jimmy embraces Margie LaMont
and goes through with her the business of making love to her by lying on top of her on a couch, each
embracing the other.
1929 E. HEMINGWAY Farewell to Arms xviii. 114 Besides all the big times we had many small ways of making
love and we tried putting thoughts in the other one's head while we were in different rooms.
1934 ‘G. ORWELL’ Burmese Days iv. 54 Why is master always so angry with me when he has made love to
me?
1950 M. PEAKE Gormenghast xxix. 173 One of the Carvers made love to her and she had a baby.
1967 B. WRIGHT tr. R. Queneau Between Blue & Blue xiv. 151 When you make love on a bunk,..the man has to
bump his head.
1971 Daily Tel. 15 Jan. 17/1 Couples who make love frequently are more likely to have sons than those who
do so less often.
1986 D. JOHNSON Stars at Noon (1987) i. 17 Making love with him was like passing through a patch of fog.
1999 T. PARSONS Man & Boy (2000) ii. 19 We were making love on the floor—or the futon, as Gina called it.

b. make love, not war: used as a pacifist anti-war slogan or (more

generally in other contexts) as an appeal for peace and compassion. Also in
to make love, not war.
Originally associated with protest in the mid 1960s (esp. amongst the hippie counterculture) against
U.S. military intervention in Vietnam.

1965 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 12 Mar. 19/1 You've seen those bumper stickers... And the latest in Berkeley,
protesting Viet Nam, simply say ‘Make Love—Not War.’
1966 Times 2 Sept. 12/2 They intend to distribute badges stating ‘Make Love, not War’—a slogan used by
C.N.D.
1970 Washington Post 14 Aug. B1/1 People [at Woodstock] got together.., shared food, water and dope,
enjoyed music and conversation and made love, not war.
1982 Times 27 Jan. 8/7 Dr Comfort..believes that it [sc. recreational sex] may drain away aggression, as in
the hippy slogan ‘Make Love Not War’.
2005 M. O'CONNOR Bitch Posse xx. 158 All those big houses in the subdivisions are filled with former hippies
who said Make Love Not War and Never Trust Anyone over Thirty.
2007 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 24 Mar. (Sport section) 10 Football is one of the few areas of national life where
Arabs and Jews happily work and play together... ‘It shows people that we should make love and not
war.’
 P4. (give, †commend, †remember) my love to — (also (with) love
to —): a formula requesting that the person addressed (in speech or
writing) convey the expression of the speaker's or writer's affection to a
third person (often used in the subscription to a letter). Similarly also to
send one's love; (with) love from —, and love (—). Cf. GIVE v. 6d.

1615 F. BEAUMONT & J. FLETCHER Cupids Revenge IV. i. sig. I4 As you finde him setled, remember my loue and
seruice to his Grace.
1618 T. SHERWIN Let. in S. Purchas Pilgrimes (1625) III. viii. 733 Remember my loue to all at Faire-hauen.
1630 J. WINTHROP Hist. New Eng. (1825) (modernized text) I. 378 Commend me to all our friends. My love
and blessing to your brother and sisters [etc.].
1635 in B. Cusack Everyday Eng. 1500–1700 (1998) 247 With Mr Gorges loue and myen to my daughter
and your selfe.
1665 EARL OF MARLBOROUGH Fair Warnings 3 I beseech you commend my love to all mine acquaintance.
1684 in B. Cusack Everyday Eng. 1500–1700 (1998) 220 May lowf to yow and Robert Goodien.
1742 Observ. Methodists 20 Give my dear Love to my dear Band Brethren.
1765 W. COWPER Let. 14 Aug. (1979) I. 111 My Love to all your Family.
1773 J. WESLEY Let. 7 Oct. (1931) VI. 49 My wife sends her love; she has her old companion the gout.
1785 LADY NEWDIGATE Let. May in A. E. Newdigate-Newdegate Cheverels (1898) iv. 67 Love from all here
Adieu.
1793 W. COWPER Let. 24 Feb. (1984) IV. 298 With Mary's kind love.
1819 R. SOUTHEY Select. from Lett. (1856) III. 3 Love from all to all, and kisses as many as you please to give
to the kissable part of the family.
1836 DICKENS Pickwick Papers (1837) ix. 89 Love to Tuppy.
1854 W. COLLINS Hide & Seek (1861) 183 ‘I will write and comfort your mother this very afternoon ——’ ‘Give
her my love’, interposed Zack.
1875 ‘M. TWAIN’ Let. 23 Nov. (1917) I. xv. 268 We-all send love to you-all.
1911 W. OWEN Let. 20 Sept. (1967) 83 Love to Mary and me brethren twain.
1921 A. HUXLEY Let. 21 Nov. (1969) 205 I will telephone or write about both these dates. Love from Aldous.
1949 D. SMITH I capture Castle (U.K. ed.) xi. 188 Dear Cassandra, it was nice of you to write... Love from
Neil.
1970 T. SOUTHERN Blue Movie III. iv. 151 ‘Hans sends his love,’ Angela was saying, across the candlelit dining
table.
2004 Daily Mail (Nexis) 11 Aug. 31 Give my love to Daddy if you see him.

P5. †to take (also nim) love to: to feel love or affection for. Obs.

OE ÆLFRIC Catholic Homilies: 1st Ser. (Royal) (1997) ix. 252 Ærest he him ondræt hellewite & bewepð his
synna syððan he nimð eft lufe to gode: þonne onginð he to murcnienne & þincð him to lang hwænne he
beo genumen of þyses lifes earfoðnyssum, & gebroht to ecere reste.
OE tr. Vitas Patrum in B. Assmann Angelsächsische Homilien u. Heiligenleben (1889) 197 Ða gelicode him
sona ðurh deofles tihtince þæs hæþenan sacerdos dohtor. Began þa niman swyðe micle lufe to hyre and
 to hyre fæder gewænde and hy him to gemæccan gyrnde.
▸c1440 S. SCROPE tr. C. de Pisan Epist. of Othea (St. John's Cambr.) (1970) 66 Meede..took so greete loue to
Jason that be þe enchauntementis þat sche couthe..made charmes & lerned Jason to enchaunte.
1694 N. H. Ladies Dict. 48/1 Another Dolphin, in the same manner, took love to a Child upon the Sea coast
near to Pusoll.

P6. Proverbial uses.

a.

(a) love is blind.

[The conception of love as blind or as causing blindness is widespread, and is found in antiquity in both
Greek and Latin literature.]

c1405 (▸c1395) CHAUCER Merchant's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 354 For loue is blynd alday and may nat see.
1600 SHAKESPEARE Merchant of Venice II. vi. 36 Loue is blinde .
1661 J. GLANVILL Vanity of Dogmatizing xiii. 119 And, that Love is blind, is extensible beyond the object of
Poetry.
1746 A. ARBUTHNOT Mem. Miss Jenny Cameron 110 No, no, said Jenny; though Love is blind, I never heard
that he was deaf.
1848 E. BENNETT Trapper's Bride xi. 94 Love is blind, says the old proverb.
1898 J. D. BRAYSHAW Slum Silhouettes 35 They say as luv is blind.
1965 J. M. BREWER Worser Days 166 I don't make love by the garden gate, For love is blind, but the
neighbors ain't.
2000 J. J. CONNOLLY Layer Cake (2004) 62 Aha, makes sense to you but love is blind, my friend.

(b) all's fair in love and war and variants.

[1578 J. LYLY Euphues f. 31v Anye impietie may lawfully be committed in loue, which is lawlesse.]
1620 T. SHELTON tr. Cervantes 2nd Pt. Don Quixote xxi. 138 Loue and warre are all one [Sp. el amor y la
guerra son vna misma cosa]: and as in warre it is lawful to vse sleights and stratagems to ouercome
the enemy: So in amorous strifes and competencies, Impostures and iuggling tricks are held for good,
to attaine to the wished end.
1717 W. TAVERNER Artful Husband (new ed.) II. 38 All advantages are fair in Love and War.
1789 Relapse I. xvi. 140 Tho' this was a confounded lie, my friend, ‘all is fair in love and war’.
1845 G. P. R. JAMES Smuggler I. iv. 95 In love and war, every stratagem is fair, they say.
1850 F. E. SMEDLEY Frank Fairlegh xlix. 434 All's fair in love and war, you know.
1905 Washington Post 9 June 2/5 New Yorker so busy wooing he forgot he had no funds. ‘All is fair in love
and war,’ holds good in fiction, but not in the eyes of the police.
1979 ‘J. GASH’ Grail Tree v. 45 All's fair in love, war and antiques.
2005 Cosmopolitan Aug. 218/1 All's fair in love and war, so flick the trip switch in the fuse box. Without
electricity, he's forced to surrender his console and get back to basics.

b. In various other proverbs and proverbial phrases.

See also the love of money is the root of all evil at MONEY n. Phrases 3a; to be off with the old love (before
 one is on with the new) at OFF adv. 4c; praise the child and you make love to the mother at PRAISE v.
3b(b). [With love and a cough cannot be hid compare Middle French amour ne puet estre celee love
cannot be hidden (14th cent.).]

1474 CAXTON tr. Game & Playe of Chesse (1883) III. iii. 97 Herof men saye a comyn prouerbe in england, that
loue lasteth as longe as the money endureth.
▸?a1500 R. HENRYSON tr. Æsop Fables: Cock & Fox l. 512 in Poems (1981) 23 The prouerb sayis, ‘Als gude
lufe cummis as gais.’
a1513 R. FABYAN New Cronycles Eng. & Fraunce (1516) I. cxv. f. liii Hote Loue is soone colde.
1573 J. SANFORD tr. L. Guicciardini Garden of Pleasure f. 98v Foure things cannot be kept close, Loue, the
cough, fyre, and sorrowe.
1584 R. GREENE Morando sig. B.ivv Loue doth much but money doth all.
1611 R. COTGRAVE Dict. French & Eng. Tongues at Amour Loue, and the Cough cannot be hidden.
a1618 W. RALEIGH Remains (1664) 35 Love needs no teaching.
1678 J. RAY Coll. Eng. Prov. (ed. 2) 55 Love ne're delights in a sorrowful man.
1732 T. FULLER Gnomologia 140 Love and Pride stock Bedlam.
1777 C. DIBDIN Quaker I. viii. 16 According unto the proverb, love maketh a wit of the fool.
1863 ‘G. ELIOT’ Romola I. I. i. 102 If there are two things not to be hidden—love and a cough—I say there is a
third, and that is ignorance.
1881 Appanoose (Iowa) Times 14 Apr. 1/4 It is said that love conquers all things.
1941 A. KREYMBORG Poetic Drama Introd. 4 ‘The path of true love never runs smooth’ in the drama.
1994 R. DAVIES Cunning Man 458 Love and a cough cannot be hid.
2007 EveningNews (Edinb.) (Nexis) 8 Mar. 1 Many people say ‘love conquers all’ but that's not always true.

P7. there's no love lost between them (also us, etc.).

†a. In a positive sense: ‘their (our, etc.) affection is mutual’. Obs.

1600 B. JONSON Every Man out of his Humor II. i. sig. E.ii Car... Hee loues you well Signior. Sog. There shall
be no loue lost Sir.
c1640 R. DAVENPORT Surv. Sci. in Wks. (1890) 327 Oh my sweete! Sure there is no loue lost when you two
meete.
1696 W. BATES Acct. Life P. Henry (1699) 8 Dr. Busby..took a particular Kindness to him,..and there was no
Love lost betwixt them.
1706 P. MOTTEUX Don Quixote (1749) III. 266 I love him well, and there's no love lost between us.
1749 T. SMOLLETT tr. A. R. Le Sage Gil Blas III. IX. vii. 229 I have a friendship for you..And I can assure thee,
child, (said I), there is no love lost [Fr. que tu n'aimes pas un ingrat].
1773 O. GOLDSMITH She stoops to Conquer IV. 77 As for murmurs, mother, we grumble a little now and then,
to be sure. But there's no love lost between us.
1824 N. DRAKE Noontide Leisure II. 54 Give me your hand..and let me tell you..there is no love lost between
us.
1828 C. LAMB New Year's Coming of Age in Elia 2nd Ser. 8 There was no love lost for that matter.
1839 S. LOVER Hall Porter II. i. 17 I'm obleeged to you, Misther Bowlt; and in throth there's no love lost
between us, for I respect you, and always did.
b. In a negative sense: ‘they (we, etc.) have no love for each other’.

?1622 J. TAYLOR Trav. Twelve-pence in Wks. (1630) I. 71 They loue me not, which makes 'em quickly spend
me. But there's no great loue lost 'twixt them and mee, We keepe asunder and so best agree.
1751 S. RICHARDSON Clarissa (ed. 3) III. xxv. 134 He must needs say, there was no love lost between some of
my family and him; but he had not deserved of them what they had of him.
1797 Posthumous Daughter I. xlii. 217 I do not like him at all, and I believe there is no love lost between us.
1858 THACKERAY Virginians I. xvii. 134 There was not a great deal of love lost between Will and his half-
sister.
1866 W. D. HOWELLS Venetian Life 121 Americans do not like these people and I believe there is no love lost
on the other side.
1889 T. A. TROLLOPE What I Remember III. 91 Between Italian and French radicals there is really no love
lost.
1916 J. BUCHAN Greenmantle xiii. 203 Once or twice he ran counter to Moellendorff, and I could see there
was no love lost between these two.
1956 J. LISTER Cent. of Conflict xvi. 273 There was no love lost between the seamen and soldiers of the
mother country and the colonists, and the sooner the expedition moved on, the happier everyone
would be.
1997 ‘Q’ Deadmeat 54 There was no love lost between the two of us. We'd never got on.

P8. love at first sight: the action or state of falling instantly in love with
someone whom (or, by extension, something which) one has never
previously seen.

[a1413 (▸c1385) CHAUCER Troilus & Criseyde (Pierpont Morgan) (1881) II. l. 668 How myght it be That she
so lyghtly louede Troylus Right for þe firste syght.
a1593 MARLOWE Hero & Leander (1598) I. 175 Where both deliberat, the loue is slight, Who euer lov'd, that
lov'd not at first sight?]
1664 T. KILLIGREW Comedies & Trag. (title) The princesse: or, Love at first sight.
1753 S. RICHARDSON Hist. Sir Charles Grandison IV. xviii. 144 Love at first sight, answered Sir Charles, must
indicate a mind prepared for impression, and a sudden gust of passion.
1797 T. HOLCROFT Adventures Hugh Trevor V. vi. 70 Why this seems like love at first sight!
1822 W. HAZLITT Table-talk II. xvi. 354 I do not think that what is called Love at first sight is so great an
absurdity as it is sometimes imagined to be.
1839 C. BRONTË Let. 4 Aug. in E. C. Gaskell Life C. Brontë (1857) I. viii. 199 Well! thought I, I have heard of
love at first sight, but this beats all!
1868 W. COLLINS Moonstone I. vii. 91 You have heard of beautiful young ladies falling in love at first sight,
and have thought it natural enough.
1952 Scrutiny 18 273 We know that what we have here is no drama of romantic love-at-first-sight.
1961 C. MCCULLERS Clock without Hands iv. 89 In early youth, love at first sight, that epitome of passion,
turns you into a zombie.
1975 D. BAGLEY Snow Tiger xvi. 138 Don't you believe in love at first sight?
2005 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 12 Feb. (Life section) 4/4 Phenylethylamine (PEA): A neurotransmitter
 which often causes the lover's ‘high’ many interpret as love at first sight.

P9. love's young dream: the idealized relationship of young lovers; the
object of someone's love, a person regarded as the perfect lover; (also,
sometimes depreciatively) the lovers themselves.

1819 Times 24 Sept. 1/1 A concert, selected from the Scotch and Irish Melodies... Song, ‘Love's young
Dream’.
1821 T. MOORE Love's Young Dream in Irish Melodies i. 77 But there's nothing half so sweet in life, As love's
young dream!
1898 J. K. JEROME Second Thoughts 155 The stout lady, now regarded as a would-be blighter of love's young
dream, was hustled into the back seat.
1920 J. GALSWORTHY Skin Game I. 33 I don't mean any tosh about love's young dream; but I do like being
friends.
1937 D. L. SAYERS Busman's Honeymoon xv. 307 There now!.. If there ain't love's young dream a-comin' up
the path.
1960 B. KOPS Dream of Peter Mann 54 Look at them, love's young dream.
1974 P. G. WODEHOUSE Aunts aren't Gentlemen iii. 20 I was helping a pal to celebrate the happy conclusion
of love's young dream, and it may be that I became a mite polluted.
2001 J. PAISLEY Not for Glory 54 Noo I hink we shouldnae make nae mair noise an disturb love's young
dream up aheid.

P10. euphem. love in a cottage: marriage with insufficient means.

1745 C. COFFEY Devil upon Two Sticks I. vi. 34 Love in a Cottage contentedly flows, And e'ery dear Minute is
blest.
1763 G. COLMAN Deuce is in Him I. 9 To talk of living on bread and water, and the comforts of love in a
cottage.
1812 M. EDGEWORTH Absentee iv, in Tales Fashionable Life V. 302 Lady Clonbrony had not..the slightest
notion, how anybody..could prefer, to a good house..and a proper establishment, what is called love in
a cottage.
1878 Scribner's Monthly Dec. 274/1 Young people tried love in a cottage, and dwelt in dove-cotes beside
their prouder kinsfolk.
1894 H. H. GARDENER Unofficial Patriot 239 Here's more love in a cottage business for you.
1938 W. EMPSON Eng. Pastoral Poetry i. 55 She had chosen love in a cottage and could stick to it.
1954 J. A. BANKS Prosperity & Parenthood viii. 116 George Vavasor, Phineas Finn, and Frank Greystock were
not faced with the dilemma of love in a cottage versus luxury in the hall.
2006 Times (Nexis) 1 July 18 A choice between a triumphant return to high finance and love in a cottage.

P11. love in disguise: a dish consisting of calf's heart (occasionally

sheep's heart) boiled, stuffed with forcemeat, and then baked.
 [1705 J. S. City & Country Recreation x. 58 Love in Disguise, and how esteemed, and the Danger there is in
it more than when it appears in its naked Form.]
1877 E. S. DALLAS Kettner's Bk. of Table 282 Love in disguise is a calf's heart stuffed, then surrounded with
forcemeat, next rolled in vermicelli, lastly deposited in a baking dish..and sent to the oven.
1937 Times 5 June 16/5 ‘Love in Disguise’ concealed within it a stuffed sheep's heart—an eighteenth-century
culinary jest.
1958 W. BICKEL tr. R. Hering Dict. Classical & Mod. Cookery 451 Love in disguise, calf's heart, soaked in
water, larded, boiled until tender, dried, coated with veal forcemeat, rolled in crushed raw noodles,
roasted in butter in oven and basted frequently.
1995 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 23 July VII. 14 British cuisine has always sounded entertaining. But, like love-in-
disguise (which turns out to be baked, stuffed calf heart), what winds up on the plate can be harder to
swallow.

P12. the love that dare not speak its name and variants.

a. Chiefly euphem. Homosexuality.

In later use also occasionally applied to sexual preferences or practices having a status likened to that of
homosexuality in the late 19th cent., as in being legally prohibited or socially unacceptable.

1894 A. DOUGLAS Two Loves in Chameleon Dec. 28 I am the love that dare not speak its name.
1895 O. WILDE in Oscar Wilde: Three Times Tried (1912) II. xiii. 271 The ‘Love that dare not speak its name’
in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and
Jonathan... It is in this century..so much misunderstood that it may be described as the ‘Love that dare
not speak its name’.
1895 M. BEERBOHM Let. 3 May in Lett. to R. Turner (1964) 102 [Oscar's] speech about the Love that dares not
tell his name was simply wonderful, and carried the whole court right away, quite a tremendous burst
of applause.
1950 N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 29 Jan. 6/1 Gide's second proposition, that civilization benefits by toleration of
‘the love that dares not speak its name.’
1976 Evening Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) (Electronic text) 28 Oct. Their ‘loves’..were of the offbeat
persuasion—you know, ‘the love that dare not speak its name’.
2001 Village Voice (N.Y.) (Nexis) 5 June 41 We know too little about plural marriage to say that it inevitably
results in pain... What gives Utah the right to repress this love that dare not speak its name?
2002 H. M. BENSHOFF in M. Jancovich Horror II. vii. 99 The ‘love that dare not speak its name’ remains a
shadowy Other which conversely works to bolster the equally constructed idea of a normative
heterosexuality.

b. In extended use (frequently humorous): any (trivial) enthusiasm or

predilection regarded as embarrassing, shameful, or inappropriate.

1977 Times 27 May 2/8 Government ministers were privately ‘terribly fond of the arts’. Could that..be the
sort of love that dare not speak its name?
1989 Independent (Nexis) 13 Dec. (Sport section) 28 In an age of hooliganism..football enthusiasm became
the love that dare not speak its name.
1994 Chicago Sun-Times (Nexis) 25 Sept. (Late Sports Final ed.) (Show section) 13 It's the love that dares
 not speak its name. No sane rocker would admit to loving the Carpenters.
2004 A. KING London Jrnl. I. i. 11 ‘Slumming’, whereby a culturally respectable reader takes pleasure in
mass-market reading, was in the nineteenth-century a love that dare not speak its name.

COMPOUNDS

A selection of some of the more significant compounds is given here.

C1. General attrib.

love-adept n. (ADEPT n.)

1820 SHELLEY Prometheus Unbound I. i. 56 Dreaming like a love-adept.

1918 D. H. LAWRENCE New Poems 53 The delicate love-adept Can warm her hands and invite her soul.
1969 L. P. HARTLEY (title) The love-adept: a variation on a theme.

love adventure n.

1612 T. SHELTON tr. Cervantes Don-Quixote: Pt. 1 IV. xxiv. 581 In Loue adventures [Sp. en los casos de amor]
no one is accomplished with more facilitie, then that which is fauoured by the womans desire.
1653 T. URQUHART tr. Rabelais 1st Bk. Wks. liv. 238 Here enter not, fond makers of demurres In love-
adventures.
1710 LD. SHAFTESBURY Soliloquy 114 In relation to common Amours and Love-Adventures.
1772 in G. Keate Poet. Wks. (1781) 172 These Indentures Now settle,—sign,—and seal all Love Adventures.
1821 C. LAMB in London Mag. Jan. 5/2 It is better that I should have pined away..than that so passionate a
love-adventure should be lost.
1900 W. C. RUSSELL (title) Rose Island. The strange story of a love adventure at sea.
1965 C. N. EZE (title) Little John in the love adventure.

love allegory n.

1897 Amer. Jrnl. Philol. 18 471 The Temple of Glass..follows the rules of the fashionable Love-Allegory.
1933 R. TUVE Seasons & Months iv. 189 All this is to be found in the love-allegory of the Golden Targe.
2003 Mod. Lang. Rev. 98 p. xxxv Vogt..credits him [sc. Gottfried von Strassburg] with the creation of the
secular love allegory.

love ballad n.

1565 T. COOPER Thesaurus at Amor Componere amores..To make loue balades.

a1654 A. ROSS Πανσεβεια (1655) viii. 238 The Canticles was not Scripture, but a Love Ballade between
Solomon and one of his Concubines.
a1668 W. DAVENANT Distresses ii. i in Wks. (1673) III. 42/1 He makes My love Ballads. The merry Madrigal
 For Maids, and the Vicious Virgin, were both his.
1876 Musical Times Aug. 565/1 Such a poem as will puzzle the warblers of ‘love ballads’ to unravel.
2000 Stud. Eng. Lit. 1500–1900 40 521 The rhythm is singsong, in the familiar pattern of love ballads.

love-bed n.

a1616 SHAKESPEARE Richard III (1623) III. vii. 72 He is not lulling on a lewd Loue-Bed [1597 day bed].
1642 S. RUTHERFORD Peaceable Plea To Rdr. sig. a2 O that Christ would enlarge his Love bed.
a1788 W. J. MICKLE Siege of Marseilles in Poems & Trag. (1794) IV. iii. 308 Leave th' Adulterer in
triumphant riot In your love bed, drunk with Erminia's charm's.
1874 A. C. SWINBURNE Bothwell I. i. 41 I had rather the close moon and stars anight Lit me to love-bed.
1934 D. THOMAS 18 Poems 19 Invisible, your clocking tides Break on the lovebeds of the weeds.
a1963 S. PLATH Crossing Water (1971) 33 Musky as a lovebed the morning after.

love bond n.

c1325 in G. L. Brook Harley Lyrics (1968) 51 (MED) Suete Iesu..hou swete bueþ þi loue-bonde.
c1400 Bk. to Mother (Bodl.) 50 Tak to þe þe swete childe and swetliche swaþ hit in his gradil wiþ swete loue
bondes.
1595 W. LISLE tr. S. G. de Senlis in tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Babilon 23 The knot and loue-bond of nations [Fr.
l'vnion et amitié des peuples], is so loosened and broke, that scarce is there founde any remedie for it.
a1869 R. LEIGHTON Reuben (1875) II. ii. 69 I'll break this love-bond slowly, so that he May never know the
breaking.
1951 L. MACNEICE tr. Goethe Faust II. v. 295 Rapture which yearns ever, Love-bond which burns ever.
2000 Jrnl. Econ. Lit. 38 477/2 Discusses how human economics grows out of natural increase; the love
bond and the meaning of zero.

love chant n.

1798 S. T. COLERIDGE Nightingale in Wordsworth & S. T. Coleridge Lyrical Ballads 66 He were fearful, that
an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of
all its music!
1884 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 24 Nov. 2/2 The young girl..sang..a seemingly plaintive love chant.
2001 Dayton (Ohio) Daily News (Nexis) 22 Sept. (Entertainm. section) C3 A series of mock meditations,
yogic exercises and..tantric love chants.

love charm n.

a1627 T. MIDDLETON Witch (1950) I. ii. 24 Thou com'st for a loue-charme now?
1708 P. BAYLY Misc. Reflections I. 59 He sent to Market for a kind of Fish which they judg'd to be a sovereign
Love-charm.
 1821 SCOTT Kenilworth II. v. 133 They are spoken in a mad tale of fairies, love-charms, and I wot not what
besides.
1948 B. G. M. SUNDKLER Bantu Prophets S. Afr. vi. 222 Various Native ‘Chemist’ shops sell..love-charms.
1994 Malahat Rev. Spring 110 Lucille made love charms from their petals to put in bath water.

love dance n.

c1450 (▸c1380) CHAUCER House of Fame (Fairf. 16) (1878) l. 1235 Ther saugh I fames olde and yonge Pipers
of alle Duche tonge To lerne loue Daunces sprynges Reus and these straunge thynges.
1712 J. WHITE Restoration All Things 58 How doth this still..confirm that Account before given of a Love
Design or project, a mask of Love, a Love Dance?
1911 J. A. THOMSON Biol. of Seasons II. 233 The long larval period of two or three years in the water, and the
short aerial love-dance lasting for an evening or two.
2001 Australian (Brisbane ed.) 1 May 3/2 Her exotic Indian love dance was described as ‘undancerly’ and
unco-ordinated.

† love desire n. Obs.

1629 J. FORD Lovers Melancholy IV. 67 The Incense of my loue-desires, are flam'd Vpon an Altar of more
constant proofe.
1657 J. HARINGTON tr. in Hist. Polindor & Flostella (ed. 3) 182 More then King my self I prize In this new-
rays'd Love-desire.
1691 E. TAYLOR J. Behmen's Theosophick Philos. 359 Nature's Property should..become not a dark raging
poisonful Hunger, but a Love desire.

love discourse n.

1591 J. HARINGTON in tr. L. Ariosto Orlando Furioso xxvii. 223 (note) It alludes to a like thing, written by
Plutarch in his loue discourses.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623) II. iv. 125 I know you ioy not in a Loue-discourse
.
1687 R. L'ESTRANGE tr. A. de Castillo Solórzano in Spanish Decameron VIII. 462 He entred into some Love
Discourses with her.
1787 J. COBB Eng. Readings 23 A confab between Romeo and Juliet—a bit of love discourse, eh?
a1864 J. CLARE Cottage Tales (1993) 125 The maids resumed their love discourse anew.
1990 South Atlantic Rev. 55 99 In the Petrarchan love discourse molding the European poetic imagination
of the Renaissance.

love ditty n.

a1586 SIR P. SIDNEY Astrophel & Stella (1591) 35 In hir necke you did loue ditties peepe.
 1694 N. H. Ladies Dict. at Singing A Fidler..gained a fortune..by procuring and humming over some Love
ditties.
a1711 T. KEN Christophil in Wks. (1721) I. 476 I..Who for Two thousand Years, or rather more, Have sung the
like Love-ditties o're and o're.
1798 W. JACKSON Four Ages xxv. 358 That peculiarly fine melody appropriated to the hundredth psalm, was
sung to a popular love-ditty.
1808 SCOTT Marmion I. vii And frame love-ditties passing rare.
1890 E. S. HARTLAND Sci. Fairy Tales (1891) i. 7 The women at their wheels; and while they spin they sing
love ditties.
2005 TNT Mag. 7 Mar. 66/1 But the tunes are mere grains of sand, while the lyrics are abysmal, winsome
little love ditties.

love dream n. [quot. c1390 probably shows a different compound with

1
DREAM n. ]

[c1390 Swete Ihesu Now (Vernon) l. 20 in C. Horstmann Yorkshire Writers (1896) II. 10 Þou make in me þi
loue-dreem [v.r. luf-drem].]
1602 T. DEKKER Blurt Master-Constable 24 Dreame of her, loue-dreames are nere too deepe.
1794 T. HOLCROFT Adventures Hugh Trevor I. xvi. 218 Olivia in danger: love dreams: fanatic horrors.
1866 R. D. BLACKMORE Cradock Nowell (1881) xii. 48 A maiden with the love dream nestling beneath the
bridal faldetta.
1932 N. COWARD Younger Generation in B. Day N. Coward: Compl. Lyrics (1998) 153/3 Though the world is
well lost for love dreams There's wisdom above dreams To compensate mothers and wives.
2005 P. CLIFFORD Deciphering Eros 307 Truly figured in the West's finest love dream is the narcissistic
heaven dreamed of by the eternal children the lovers have succeeded in remaining.

love duel n.

1856 Putnam's Monthly Mag. May 557 What is an opera without a love duel between the tenor and the
baritone?
1932 R. CAMPBELL Taurine Provence ii. 44 The great ‘Lou Pouvenco’..bore a small fortune between his horns,
until he was killed in a love-duel by a younger rival.
2001 G. ADELMAN Retelling Dostoyevsky iii. 123 He evokes in his love duel..Ivan's relationship with Katerina.

love duet n.

1863 Cornhill Mag. Sept. 305 A similar defect..strikes me in the love-duet which succeeds.
1975 Times 12 Feb. 23/6 The dance of Discord and War..has to be reconciled by the love duet.

love elegy n.
 1616 B. HOLYDAY tr. Persius Satyres sig. B6 Weak Love-elegies, such as Rome's nobles speak [L. non siqua
elegidia crudidictarunt proceres?].
1684 N. LEE Constantine Great sig. A4v (advt.) Virgil's Eclogues, Ovid's Love-Elegies, Odes of Horace, and
other Authors.
1753 T. FRANCKLIN Transl. 11 (note) Hammond, author of Love elegies.
1783 H. BLAIR Lect. Rhetoric I. iv. 69 Sonnets, Pastorals, and Love Elegies.
1853 F. E. A. GASC Materials for French Prose Composition 73 I have some love elegies which..I mean to
give to the public.
2003 R. K. GIBSON in tr. Ovid Ars Amatoria 378 Domina, the standard term for mistress in love-elegy.

love eye n.

c1540 (▸?a1400) Gest Historiale Destr. Troy (2002) f. 49v Lokyng on lenght with a loue ee.
1696 J. LEAD Fountain of Gardens sig. *F2 The beauteous Love-Eye burning in the Heart; From whence
Loves Centres endless multlply.
1775 R. B. SHERIDAN Rivals IV. iv. 84 Her love-eye was fix'd on me—t'other—her eye of duty, was finely
obliqued.
1956 ‘B. HOLIDAY’ & W. DUFTY Lady sings Blues xx. 182 I thought this had to be part of a build-up and the
love eyes had to come later.

love-fit n.

1582 R. STANYHURST tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis IV. 78 Or fro this hoat looue fits I shal bee shortlye
retrayted [L. vel eo me solvat amantem].
1679 J. GOODMAN Penitent Pardoned (1713) II. i. 150 Taken with an agony of mind, or a kind of love-fit.
1713 C. JOHNSON Successful Pyrate (ed. 2) II. i. 27 I'll..In this Lethargick Love-Fit steal his Crown.
1859 ‘H. LEE’ Against Wind & Tide (1860) vii. 226 He had discovered one or two mature Phyllises..upon
whom he retaliated the luckless experience he had gained in his first love-fit.
1906 Man 6 28 When the love-fit was on between individual males and females.

love-flight n.

a1626 J. DAVIES Wks. (1869) I. 470 (title) Love-flight.

1936 Brit. Birds 29 307 The love-flights of many species depend on a subtle change in the character of the
wing-beat, most marked perhaps in the waders.

love-gift n.

1590 T. LODGE Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie sig. Nv In elder time..the Shepheards Loue-gifts were
apples and chestnuts.
1645 S. RUTHERFORD Tryal & Triumph of Faith xxv. 312 Christ is Gods highest love-gift.
 1717 E. BIDDLE Augustus in Poem on Birth of Young Prince I. 24 His liberal Love-Gifts would undo an
Empire.
1876 R. BROWNING Cenciaja 279 The simpleton must ostentatiously Display a ring, the Cardinal's love-gift.
1987 J. SALTMAN Mod. Canad. Children's Bks. 41 A love-gift from the girl's grandmother—seeds to be planted
and to bloom as flowers in the new land.

love-glance n.

1652 E. BENLOWES Theophila X. iii. 179 No Grandee Patron court I, nor entice Love-glances from enchanting
Eyes.
1820 KEATS Lamia I, in Lamia & Other Poems 9 The love-glances of unlovely eyes.
1952 R. CAMPBELL tr. Poems of Baudelaire 146 The love-glance of a courtesan.

love intrigue n.

1667 G. DIGBY Elvira IV. 50 O the unlucky Star That leads a Lady, engaged in love intrigues To take a new
Attendant!
1726 W. LAW Absolute Unlawfulness Stage-Entertainment (ed. 2) 11 It consists of Love-Intrigues,
blasphemous Passions, prophane Discourses, [etc.].
1798 W. RENDER tr. A. von Kotzebue Count Benyowsky III. 110 Treason! Ships! Love intrigues! Flight!
Conspiracy!
1893 H. B. CLARKE Spanish Lit. 163 The plot invariably centres round the love intrigue of persons in the
middle or upper classes of life.
2002 19th-cent. Lit. 57 196 Valerius immediately befriends Sextus, and as a consequence becomes involved
in a love intrigue.

† love-laughing n. Obs.

c1400 (▸?c1390) Sir Gawain & Green Knight (1940) l. 1777 With luf-laȝyng a lyt.

love-look n.

1637 S. RUTHERFORD Let. 10 June (1848) clxxv. 328 Any little communion with him [sc. Christ], one of his
love-looks, should be my begun heaven.
1680 E. SETTLE Life & Death Major Clancie vi. 113 They interchange glances of Love-looks, while the
Marchant is preparing for his intended visit.
1757 in Amer. Mag. (1758) 86/1 Soft blushes in her cheeks arise And love looks languid in her eyes.
1904 Windsor Mag. June 305/2 Do you think I don't know a love-look when I see it?
1943 M. LAVIN Tales from Bective Bridge 36 It was love-talk and love-looks that held down this man.

love-lore n.
 1754 H. WALPOLE Lett. (1846) III. 64 That living academy of love-lore, my Lady Vane.
1846 R. W. EMERSON Jrnl. in Jrnls. & Misc. Notebks. (1971) 442 Tremulous with love-lore.
1962 Times 7 June 16/3 William Gerhardi speaks of ‘love-lore’.

love lyric n.

1809 (title) Royal love lyrics, from royal love letters, with notes and illustrations.
1856 National Rev. 3 372 The love-lyric..is probably the most intense expression of primitive passion.
1974 P. DICKINSON Poison Oracle ii. 44 You get a basic story, but inside it you get dramatic sections and love
lyrics.

love-madness n.

1823 Medico-chirurg. Rev. 3 722 Marriage has been proposed for love-madness.
1884 Harper's Mag. Dec. 134/1 Love-madness is nothing new.
1939 tr. E. N. Marais My Friends the Baboons ix. 110 Young baboons during their period of love-madness
lost all their usual fear of man.

love magic n.

1826 T. ROSCOE German Novelists IV. 7 Love-magic; some centuries ago.

1949 M. MEAD Male & Female iii. 56 How the..human sacrifice or love-magic fitted into the whole.
2002 W. H. GOODENOUGH Under Heaven's Brow xvii. 253 Young people frequently resorted to love magic.

love marriage n.

1781 London Mag. Mar. 110/2 Where there is a lasting love Marriage, it would be exceedingly distressing to
both of the parties to be convinced that where death does them part, their union is dissolved for ever.
1850 THACKERAY Pendennis II. xxi. 209 Look at your love-marriages... The love-match people are the most
notorious of all for quarrelling afterwards.
1990 V. S. NAIPAUL India: Million Mutinies i. 67 He had a sister who had made a love marriage a year or so
before.

love meeting n.

?1589 T. NASHE Almond for Parrat sig. B Profound Cliffe..broke vp his brotherly loue-meeting abruptly,
when the spirite had but newly moued him.
1656 DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE Natures Pictures X. 346 A procuring Bawd is to make Love-matches, and contrive
Love-meetings.
1760 C. JOHNSTONE Chrysal II. xi. 229 I told you that the attempt had been made upon the king, as he was
 returning from a love-meeting.
1864 A. DALY & F. WOOD Taming Butterfly I. 19 A meeting—a love meeting with a woman of fashion! Happy
Beaujolais!
1928 D. H. LAWRENCE Lady Chatterley's Lover xiii. 234 It was not the right sort of heart to take to a love-
meeting.

love-melancholy n.

1621 R. BURTON Anat. Melancholy III. I. I. i. 495 Some or other..will much discommend some part of this
Treatise of Loue Melancholy.
1694 N. H. Ladies Dict. at Occations of falling in Love Occasion, as we have said, is very much contributing
to Love-Melancholy.
1798 C. LUCAS Castle of St. Donats xv. 186 They also explained to him..the young Captain's love melancholy.
1832 J. P. KENNEDY Swallow Barn I. xxvi. 276 Melancholy,—that is, your love-melancholy,—wears divers
antics.
a1963 L. MACNEICE Astrol. (1964) v. 162 The astrological causes of love-melancholy.

love-mongering n.

1882 Spectator 9 Dec. 1579 His [sc. Sterne's] lovemongering was altogether contemptible.

† love-mourning n. Obs.

?a1300 St. Eustace (Digby) l. 111 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1881) 2nd Ser. 213 Toward Egipte hy
gunnen fare, ffore I-bounden al wiþ kare, And wiþ loue mourninge Of Crist þat alle þinge shop.
1845 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. May 639/2 He withdraws himself from all feasts, societies, and throngs of
men, to dedicate himself to love-mourning.

love-ode n.

1650 A. COWLEY Guardian I. iii. sig. A4v I have two or three Love-odes ready made.
1689 M. PRIOR Epist. to F. Shephard 50 Pigs might squeak love-odes, dogs bark satire.
a1745 T. WARTON Poems on Several Occasions (1748) 139 (title of poem) An American Love-Ode.
1792 S. T. COLERIDGE Let. 13 Feb. (1956) I. 28 My tiny love ode possesses no other property in the world.
1859 C. M. BAIN Poems 142 (title) Rural love ode.

love-passion n.

1582 T. WATSON Ἑκατοµπαθία: Passionate Cent. Loue To Rdr. sig. A4 In respect of my trauaile in penning
these louepassions.
 1649 R. BARON Apol. for Paris 47 Palme trees are of both sexes, and expresse not a sympathy, but a Love
passion.
1753 Dict. Love at Hope It is the hope of that [sc. enjoyment], which is the true basis of the love-passion.
1858 C. LAMB in Harper's Mag. Dec. 79/1 This drowsy Deity, who certainly was first invented in drink, as
sloth and luxury are commonly the first movers in these idle love-passions.

love-plot n.

1640 J. GOUGH Strange Discov. IV. ii. sig. H4v O I feare This kindnesse is some love plot on my deare.
1672 DRYDEN Conquest Granada II. I. ii. 83 But your Love-plot I'le quickly countermine.
1795 tr. Flareau Ocean Spectre iii. ii. 37 Over turn their deep laid love plots by a speedy murther.
1871 D. H. STROTHER Virginia Illustr. xvi. 298 A story without a love-plot is like a bush without a rose.
1995 Mirror (Nexis) 1 July 8 She will be cheating on her husband Frank all over again in the latest love plot
aimed at boosting the show's ratings.

love poem n.

1616 G. CHAPMAN in tr. G. Musaeus Divine Poem To Rdr. sig. A8v It being by all the most Learned, the
incomparable Loue-Poem of the world.
1750 Wks. Celebrated Authors 176 I shall not so much as mention his Canticles, which Grotius, as well as I,
affirms to be a Love-Poem.
1847 TENNYSON Princess IV. 71 And this A mere love-poem.
1937 D. THOMAS Let. 6 Aug. (1987) 255 I'm a long way from everywhere, in a high huge haystack of a studio
over the harbour,..writing an occasional bad love poem.
2002 Blush! Nov. 79/2 To get my own back, I sent a love poem to our history teacher and signed it from
him.

love-poet n.

1759 Monthly Rev. 20 179 The Doctor's having entertained himself with translating the whole when he were
still younger..were no improper circumstances for the transfusion of a gallant and soft love-poet.
1888 M. ARNOLD Ess. Crit. 2nd Ser. 43 Nor is Clarinda's love-poet, Sylvander, the real Burns either.
1923 J. M. MURRY Pencillings 224 Love poets are seldom the singers of happiness in love.
1995 V. CHANDRA Red Earth & Pouring Rain (1996) 142 Here we are, you and I, love-poets of the first order,
reduced to writing about a homicidal madman.

love poetry n.

1787 in Spenser Poet. Wks. I. p. lxxxix The uncommon ardour of his passion, as well as the fineness of his
wit and language, established him the master of love-poetry among the Moderns.
1861 J. BROWN Horæ Subsecivæ 2nd Ser. II. 466 This perfervor of our Scottish love poetry.
 1991 F. KANGA Heaven on Wheels (1992) vi. 79 And someone gave me a book of Elizabethan love poetry, but
you can't read too much of that. Just an occasional dip.

love-prank n.

1633 W. PRYNNE Histrio-mastix 88 The Scriptures doe expressly prohibit the personating of any sinne; much
more then, the Acting of Adulteries, Incests, Rapes, Murders, Thefts, Lovepranks.
1746 A. ARBUTHNOT Life Simon, Lord Lovat 204 His Love-pranks began to be the Subject of public-Talk.
1857 G. H. BOKER Plays & Poems II. 415 And curl in scorn when other maidens play Their love-pranks round
me.
2001 India Today (Nexis) 12 Mar. 73 Many of the traditional Horis retell the love pranks of Krish-na-Radha.

† love-prate n. Obs. rare

a1616 SHAKESPEARE As you like It (1623) IV. i. 191 You haue simply misus'd our sexe in your loue-prate
.
1769 E. GRIFFITH School for Rakes II. 20 Here comes my brother—have done with your love-prate.

love-quarrel n.

1671 MILTON Samson Agonistes 1008 Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end.
1694 L. ECHARD tr. Plautus Amphitryon III. ii, in tr. Plautus Comedies 43 Whenever these little Love Quarrels
happen, and those made up, the pleasing Passion's doubled.
1715 POPE in tr. Homer Iliad I. III. Observ. 253 There is in one Place a Lover to be protected, in another a
Love-Quarrel to be made up.
1798 J. BAILLIE Introd. Disc. in Series of Plays 56 The clearing up of some mistake or love-quarrel.
1857 DICKENS Little Dorrit xiii. 111 ‘One remark,’ said Flora, giving their conversation..the tone of a love
quarrel.
1993 Callaloo 16 342 How a woman may read her man out, in a love quarrel.

love-rhyme n.

1598 SHAKESPEARE Love's Labour's Lost III. i. 176 Dan Cupid, Regent of Loue-rimes.
1601 A. MUNDAY & H. CHETTLE Death Earle of Huntington v. 18 These loue-rimes are the tokens of small
good.
[1737 J. MILLER Coffee-house ii. 4 Have a Respect unto the approaching Nuptials of my Friend Sir John
Love-rhyme, and the virtuous Lady Toothless.]
1822 S. T. COLERIDGE Coll. Lett. (1971) V. 218 We used to carry..the pillage of the Flower Gardens..with
Sonnet or Love-rhyme wrapped round the Nose-gay.
1905 Mod. Lang. Notes 20 176/1 In this Tuscan folk-poetry Mr. Hewlett finds an artistry which clearly
differentiates its from the common love-rhyme of all nations.
love-secret n.

1603 P. HOLLAND tr. Plutarch Morals 350 The love-secrets [Fr. le secret des amours] and merrie conceits
passing from an husband being absent in another countrey, and writing to his wife.
1676 DRYDEN Aureng-Zebe II. 18 What danger, Arimant, is this you fear? Or what Love-secret which I must
not hear?
1753 S. RICHARDSON Hist. Sir Charles Grandison I. xxxvii. 265 And has he, can he have, so many Love-
secrets, and yet..not let them transpire to such a sister?
1923 R. GRAVES Feather Bed 25 This meek ex-novice rifled Of her love-secrets?

love-service n.

1561 T. HOBY tr. B. Castiglione Courtyer III. sig. Bb.ii With what sober mode they shewe fauor to who so is in
their loue seruice [It. che gli serue per amore].
1695 J. LEAD Laws of Paradise i. 33 When he saw thee wounded..his Eye pitied, and officiated in this Love
Service, as one that had a fellow-feeling of thy Calamity.
1863 H. R. GELDART First Steps in Life 238 Such a charming picture she gave of the pleasure and comfort of
love service.

love-shaft n.

1600 SHAKESPEARE Midsummer Night's Dream II. i. 159 Cupid..loos'd his loue-shaft smartly, from his
bowe.
1656 J. COLLOP Poesis Rediviva 76 Cupid of thy shoulders makes a bow, From whence fly love shafts
wounding.
1692 H. PURCELL Fairy-queen II. 12 Cupid..Let flye his Love-Shaft smartly from his Bow.
1838 Bentley's Misc. 3 544 I have generally observed that a love-shaft pierces through nine hundred and
ninety-nine hearts at once.
1993 D. S. OLSON Confessions Aubrey Beardsley (1994) x. 199 Andreé..watches from the shade of a garden
pavilion, perhaps wishing that the arrows were love-shafts intended for him.

love sonnet n.

1621 R. BURTON Anat. Melancholy III. III. ii. iii. i. 619 Loue will make them Musitians, and to make Ditties,
Madrigalls, Elegies, & loue Sonnets.
1796 J. THELWALL Appeal against Kidnapping & Murder 49 Have not our houses been previously plundered
by his Majesty's messengers of..manuscripts of all descriptions from the novel and love sonnet to the
physiological dissertation?
1870 D. G. ROSSETTI Let. 26 Feb. (1965) II. 804 The love-sonnets are the preponderant portion.
1958 E. BLUNDEN War Poets 1914–18 ii. 15 In the pre-war poems of Brooke something like a premonition can
be seen recurring. A love-sonnet dated 1909 powerfully includes it.
 2003 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 10 Apr. 36/2 The popular singer Serafino Aquiliano, a lutenist whose outrageous
sendups of Petrarchan love sonnets swept Italy in the 1490s to become the latest fashion in music.

love speech n.

?c1225 (▸?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Cleo. C.vi) (1972) 153 Wið tollinde word oðer wið luue speche.
1588 A. MUNDAY tr. Palmerin D'Oliua I. vi. f. 14 Among a number of soft and sweete loue speeches, he
discoursed to her his talke with the Emperour.
1694 N. H. Ladies Dict. at Form of Courtship There are very few even of our Dramatique Writers; whose
Love-speeches read well, or appear free or natural.
1796 M. G. LEWIS Village Virtues II. 32 His love-speeches must be extremely moving!
1829 THACKERAY Let. ?25 Feb. (1945) I. 146 A gentleman..arrived [who]..makes love speeches to admiration.
1917 W. B. YEATS Wild Swans at Coole 47 Receive the love-speeches of Juliet with an ironical chirping.
2006 Scotsman 14 Oct. 22 Why else would the producers prompt [him] to give wife Vicky the longest, most
inarticulate love speech in TV history?

† love-spring n. Obs.

c1325 in K. Böddeker Altengl. Dichtungen (1878) 201 Þy loue sprenges tacheþ me.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Comedy of Errors (1623) III. ii. 3 Shall Antipholus Euen in the spring of Loue, thy Loue-
springs rot?
a1672 P. STERRY Disc. Freedom of Will (1675) III. 205 In these Angelical Loves, the Seraphims are all forms of
things, as in their first, their sweetest created Love-Springs, and Love-Unions.

love-suit n.

a1586 SIR P. SIDNEY Arcadia (1590) II. ii. f. 102v His loue-suits made to Mopsa, meant to Pamela.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Henry V (1623) V. ii. 101 Tearmes, Such as will..pleade his Loue-suit to her gentle
heart.
1698 R. GOULD Satyr against Wooing 6 Some Brawny Groom..Cries Ough, and Mounts, and the Love-suit is
done.
1775 R. CUMBERLAND Choleric Man V. iii. 87 I fell into a kind of a love-suit here, with the young lady of this
house.
1822 S. T. COLERIDGE Shorter Wks. & Fragm. (1995) II. 959 His murmur sounded..like the Prologue to a
Love-suit.
1943 Mod. Lang. Notes 58 426 One of the most unintelligible lines in Shakespeare occurs in the short
speech..in which Diana pretends to accede to Bertram's love-suit.
2001 Signs 27 34 Ladies who refuse the love suit will be held accountable for the lover's inevitable demise.

love-talk n.
 1728 Congress of Bees 27 I had the Pleasure to hear most dismal love Talk than ever was told in any of our
modern Romances.
1862 G. MEREDITH Mod. Love xxxiii. 65 My wife, read this! Strange love talk, is it not?
1994 R. HELLENGA Sixteen Pleasures xiii. 208 Tete-a-tete they talk the love talk they love to talk.

† love-talking n. Obs.

c1400 (▸?c1390) Sir Gawain & Green Knight (1940) l. 927 I hope þat may hym here Schal lerne of luf-
talkyng.
a1475 in J. O. Halliwell Early Eng. Misc. (1855) 2 A blestfulle songe that byrd gone synge, And I abode for
love talkynge.

love-tear n.

c1325 in K. Böddeker Altengl. Dichtungen (1878) 201 Of loue teres he weop a flod.
1857 Putnam's Monthly Mag. Jan. 10 Eye of night, with love-tears swimming.

love theme n.

1829 Friendship's Offering 245 Her cheek was pale, save when a blush (Raised by the youth's love-theme)
cast a flush For a moment o'er it.
1938 R. GRAVES Coll. Poems p. xxi With the love-theme went the old fear-theme, sharpened rather than
blunted by the experiences of peace.
1957 A. R. MANVELL & J. HUNTLEY Technique Film Music i. 21 Examples of original music by Griffith and Briel
included a prominent love-theme (for the Little Colonel and Elsie Stoneman).
2002 Electronic Gaming Monthly Feb. 148/2 The only reason I felt compelled to go back and play was to
hear the cool love theme (and subsequent power ballad) one more time.

love thought n.

a1450 in R. H. Bowers Three Middle Eng. Relig. Poems (1963) 33 A swete lofe thowt is praised of me.
a1586 SIR P. SIDNEY Astrophel & Stella (1591) 49 Twinckling starres loue thoughts prouoke.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Twelfth Night (1623) I. i. 40 Loue-thoughts lye rich, when canopy'd with bowres.
1688 D. LEEDS Temple of Wisdom App. 81 The Spirit of the Life..is as it were more than half mad with Love-
thoughts.
1781 H. DOWNMAN Poems to Thespia sig. A2 No antique Bards for love-thoughts I explore.
1885 Cent. Mag. July 417/1 He sings the youthful loves of a lass of La Crau,..that touching poem built of
love-thoughts and impressions of nature.
1984 ELH 51 711 We have heard Jane fantasize about this kind of allegorical pilgrimage before, though it
was significantly after these hitherto undocumented love thoughts.
love-toy n.

1566 ‘W. P.’ tr. C. S. Curio Pasquine in Traunce f. 96 Discourses and loue toyes [It. gli amori] are woes,
playes and pastimes are woes.
1647 J. TRAPP Comm. Epist. & Rev. (Coloss. iv. 16) Other good books must be read..yet not idle pamphlets,
and love-toies.
1773 R. GRAVES Spiritual Quixote III. IX. xi. 39 One would think it was a love-toy; and that it was given you by
your sweet-heart.
2001 FHM Feb. 77/3 The aim is to be your mistress' love-toy and she should employ all means necessary to
cajole or punish you into submission.

love-trick n.

1567 W. PAINTER Palace of Pleasure II. f. 199 Well it might haue bene said, of loue trickes that she was the
only dame and mistresse.
1590 T. WATSON Eglogue vpon Death Walsingham 266 Let them suppose sweete Musicke out of vse, and
wanton louetricks to be foolish toies.
1611 R. COTGRAVE Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Amourettes, loue-trickes.
1729 C. JOHNSON Village Opera III. ii. 66 A Love-trick, which is, must, and will always be pardonable.
1826 S. SMITH Wks. (1859) II. 90/2 All the various love-tricks of attempting to appear indifferent.
1960 T. HUGHES Lupercal 74 Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks.

love verse n.

1598 F. MERES tr. Luis de Granada Sinners Guyde I. xix. 202 Hee hath..imployed all the strength and
sinnowes of his reason and vnderstanding..in compozing Poems, in making loue Verses [Sp. en
componer sonetos llenos de agudeza y sentencias].
1647 A. COWLEY (title) The mistresse, or severall copies of love-verses.
a1708 WALSH in Dryden Misc. (1727) IV. 335 Petrarch..being by much the most famous of all the Moderns
who have written Love-Verses.
1799 F. REYNOLDS Laugh when you Can I. 4 While I'm copying out pleadings in one room, you're writing love
verses in another.
1841 T. D. LAUDER Legendary Tales Highlands I. 100 Here is one..which would seem to have a curious posey
in it; some ready-made love verse, I suppose.
1927 E. V. GORDON Introd. Old Norse p. xliv Some love-verses of his were there inserted in the poem.
2003 Mod. Lang. Rev. 98 504 Matthew Bell demonstrates from examples of love verse over Goethe's entire
career how love is always grounded in nature.

love visit n.

1637 S. RUTHERFORD Lett. (1848) cxxiii. 234 Our Lord maketh delicates and dainties of his sweet presence
and love-visits to his own.
 1735 J. MILLER Man of Taste I. i. 7 Besides, Sir, their very Dress and Deportment were shocking. To make a
Love-Visit with a plain Leg..and a Coat without Lace.
1898 R. G. MOULTON Anc. Classical Drama (ed. 2) viii. 278 If the gods resist,..blockade them when they wish
to make their love visits to earth.
1995 J. JOCHENS Women in Old Norse Society (1998) ii. 34 In recounting the illicit love visits of their pagan
ancestors, they recognized the deep historical roots of extramarital sexual relations.

love word n.

a1250 Ureisun ure Louerde (Nero) in R. Morris Old Eng. Homilies (1868) 1st Ser. 201 Hwi ne con ich
wowen þe wið swete luue wordes.
a1651 D. CALDERWOOD Hist. Kirk Scotl. (1843) II. 352 Manie love words she useth to Bothwell in this letter.
1883 Longman's Mag. Aug. 368 Why did her love-words echo in his ear?
1999 A. ARENSBERG Incubus VI. xvi. 184 He used to whisper to her while he aroused her, borrowing love words
from classical pornography.

C2. Objective.
a.

love-breathing adj.

1612 A. STAFFORD tr. I. Lipsius Oration ag. Calumny in Medit. & Resol. 134 I shall desire this faire
Audience..to fill and guide the sailes (as I may say) of my Oration, with the Zephyrus, or gentle gale of
their loue-breathing thoughts [L. vela hæc, vt sic dicam, orationis meæ Zephyro beniuolentiæ vestræ
afflate atque dirigite].
1744 J. THOMSON Autumn in Seasons (new ed.) 157 In Rapture warbled from Love-breathing Lips.
1775 R. B. SHERIDAN Rivals III. i. 51 What think you of blooming, love-breathing seventeen?
1839 J. A. HILLHOUSE Dramas I. 22 Love-breathing words, Without direction, date, or name.

love-broking adj.

1808 E. S. BARRETT Miss-led General 165 What money Mr. Greentimber disbursed on account of the great
man's love-broking affairs.

love-darting adj.

1606 J. SYLVESTER tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. (new ed.) II. iii. 139 Her sweet, love-darting
Eyne.
1637 MILTON Comus 26 Love-darting eyes.
1788 ‘A. PASQUIN’ Children of Thespis (ed. 2) III. 39 See the love-darting blaze of her black rolling eye.
1844 R. F. WILLIAMS Secret Passion I. ii. 37 ‘By those divine and love-darting orbs, I am in no voice,’ replied
the musician.
 love-devouring adj.

1599 SHAKESPEARE Romeo & Juliet II. v. 7 Then loue-deuouring death do what he dare.
1683 J. LEAD Revelation of Revelations 116 The Love devouring flame is come forth to kindle upon them.
1816 BYRON Childe Harold: Canto III lxxix. 44 To that gentle touch, through brain and breast Flashed the
thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat.

love-hating adj.

1594 R. BARNFIELD Affectionate Shepheard sig. E And thou loue-hating Boy, (whom once I loued) Farewell, a
thousand-thousand times farewell.
1807 ‘Q. QUEERUM’ Ashburner's New Vocal & Poetic Repository 8 Back the god of love flew, And wounded
each heart of the love-hating crew.
1962 Educ. Theatre Jrnl. 14 169/2 A son-devouring and love-hating woman who hangs up the stuffed body
of her deceased husband in a closet wherever she goes.
2003 Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram (Nexis) 10 Oct. 16 S A love-hating self-help writer, and..a playboy
men's-magazine journalist out to expose her softer side.

love-inspiring adj.

1701 T. D'URFEY Bath II. i. 13 The Love-inspiring Graces of thy Person.

1797 M. ROBINSON Walsingham I. 277 The love-inspiring dames of luxurious Italy.
1851 THACKERAY in Scribner's Mag. 2 134/2 The Exhibition..was..a great love-inspiring, gooseflesh-bringing
sight.
1934 Soda Springs (Idaho) Sun 4 Oct. 2/2 He's been inviting violence all his life. Not a sweet and love-
inspiring chappie.
1999 Scotsman (Nexis) 28 Aug. 10 A roll-call of stories of maddening yet still love-inspiring parents,
children and partners.

† love-lacking adj. Obs.

1532 T. MORE Confut. Tyndale in Wks. 403/1 His false loue-lacking charitie.
1593 SHAKESPEARE Venus & Adonis sig. Eiijv Loue-lacking vestals, and selfe-louing Nuns.

† love-performing adj. Obs.

1599 SHAKESPEARE Romeo & Juliet III. ii. 5 Spread thy close curtaine loue-performing night.

† love-whispering adj. Obs.

 1742 POPE New Dunciad 298 Love-whisp'ring woods, and Lute-resounding waves.
a1790 W. LIVINGSTON Philos. Solitude in Landmark Anthol. (1793) 155 Love-whispering groves, and silver-
streaming floods.

b.
1 1
† love-frayner n. [ < LOVE n. + FRAYNE v. + -ER suffix ] Obs. rare

c1440 (▸?a1375) Abbey Holy Ghost (Thornton) in G. G. Perry Relig. Pieces in Prose & Verse (1914) 62 Þat
he ne do no trispase agayne þe rewle..of þis relegion and of þase lufefrayners.

love-monger n.

1591 J. LYLY Endimion I. iii. sig. B4 Thys idle humor of loue..tickleth not my lyuer, from whence the Loue-
mongers in former age seemed to inferre they should proceede.
1598 SHAKESPEARE Love's Labour's Lost II. i. 254 Thou art an old Loue-monger .
1772 J. ENTICK New Spelling Dict. (new ed.) Lovemonger, s. one who deals in affairs of love.
1865 A. C. SWINBURNE Chastelard I. ii. 35 These jangling song-smiths are keen love-mongers, They snap at all
meats.
1962 Winnipeg (Manitoba) Free Press 13 Mar. 9/4 She is natural prey to the..cynically patient love-mongers
that exist in the shadows of a corrupt society.
2001 Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press (Nexis) 27 Sept. A22 The love mongers, who preach endlessly about loving
everything and love as a way of salvation are really not talking about love.

C3. Adverbial (chiefly instrumental), parasynthetic, and similative.

love-born adj.

1668 T. JORDAN Money is Asse V. i. 40 Our Parents did..propagate the world, with love born Creatures.
1754 G. JEFFREYS Misc. 33 Wrong'd by Love-born Jealousy, She fled.
1838 E. S. WORTLEY Lays of Leisure Hours II. 472 Often have I..deemed Life's happiest moments were Ev'n
those that owned no love-born care.

love-crossed adj.

1787 F. GROSE Superstitions 3 in Provinc. Gloss. But if any disconsolate old maiden, or love-crossed
bachelor, happened to dispatch themselves in their garters, the room where the deed was perpetrated
was rendered forever uninhabitable.
1885 R. BRIDGES Eros & Psyche VIII. iv. 93 Many an old love-crossed And doleful ditty would she gently sing.
1963 F. L. LUCAS Drama of Chekhov, Synge, Yeats, & Pirandello I. 14 He was thinking early in 1901 of a play
about a love-crossed scientist going on an expedition to the Arctic.
2004 Gloucs. Citizen (Nexis) 15 July 1 People will be able to see the Bard at his best with love-crossed
nobles, mischievous servants and fools and jesters galore.
 love-deep adj.

1832 TENNYSON Eleänore in Poems (new ed.) 29 The languors of thy lovedeep eyes.
1988 N. C. L. MADGETT Octavia II. 83 Even in this world may the love-deep roots of trees conquer evil's
senseless blight.

† love-dittied adj. Obs.

1725 E. FENTON in Pope et al. tr. Homer Odyssey I. I. 532 Love-dittied airs [Gk. ἱµερόεσσαν ἀοιδὴν], and
dance, conclude the day.
1835 R. MANT British Months 194 Thou..Dost sweetly with love-dittied song Help the slow-pacing hours
along.

love-enthralled adj.

1665 R. BRATHWAIT Comment Two Tales Chaucer 23 We are now to..descend to our love-enthralled Absolon.
a1910 J. W. HOWE Hippolytus (1941) II. i. 88 At thy feet he lies To rise no more but shorn and love-
enthralled.

love-fond adj. rare

1823 T. ROSCOE tr. J. C. L. de Sismondi Hist. Lit. Europe IV. xxxvi. 458 The melancholy soul of a love-fond
poet.

love-illumined adj.

a1791 T. BLACKLOCK Poems (1793) 168 Let her fly The tender lisp, the love-illumin'd eye.
1910 E. M. BARTON Litany 72 Youths and maidens, now so hopefully surveying The love-illumined avenue of
life.

love-inspired adj.

1691 E. TAYLOR in tr. J. Behmen Theosoph. Philos. 204 No Tongue or Pen can more than smatter, at the
recital of the love-inspired Words.
1754 T. COOKE Hymn to May 8 Now the love-inspired Swain Breathes his Vows.
1785 A. YEARSLEY Poems Several Occasions 28 His mate Shall love-inspired notes repeat.
1877 P. J. BAILEY Festus (ed. 10) XVIII. 273 To assimilate to his own, All spirits, that, love-inspired, they share
his boundless throne.
1942 Philos. & Phenomenol. Res. 2 285 He is attracted by the love inspired and selfless proselytism of St.
Francis.
 2005 Leamington Spa Courier (Nexis) 26 Sept. The New Year brings Vivaldi concertos and Bach sonatas
with more Quartets and Valentines's Day love-inspired music.

love-instructed adj.

a1586 SIR P. SIDNEY Arcadia (1593) I. sig. H5 Then did he slack his loue-enstructed pace.
1882 W. CARLETON Farm Ballads (rev. ed.) 121 Leaves picked by love-instructed art From off the branches of
the heart.

love-laboured adj.

1667 MILTON Paradise Lost V. 41 The night-warbling Bird, that now awake Tunes sweetest his love-labor'd
song.
1696 J. LEAD Fountain of Gardens sig. *E3v Let all the Heavenly Nine..in one high Love-labour'd Song agree.
1757 W. THOMPSON Gondibert & Birtha in Poems on Several Occasions I. iii. 339 The Love-labour'd Song of
Nightingales.
1867 A. CARY Bishop's Son xi. 200 The night warbling bird, that now awake, Tunes sweetest his love-labored
song.

love-laden adj.

1772 S. WHYTE Shamrock 20 A chearless Guest, Yok'd with Despair, in a Love-laden Breast.
1820 SHELLEY To Skylark in Prometheus Unbound 203 Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With
music sweet as love.
1908 New Reformer July 119 The British Conquest of India freed three millions of the population to enjoy
the love-laden atmosphere of Christianity.

† love-learned adj. Obs.

1595 SPENSER Epithalamion in Amoretti & Epithalamion v. sig. G6 The birds louelearned song.

love-lighted adj.

1785 T. DWIGHT Conquest of Canäan III. 64 For earth too bright were these love-lighted fires!
1904 Daily Chron. 9 Feb. 5/2 Peering through the pale miracle of spring at his violets,..his blear eyes love-
lighted.

love-lit adj.

a1809 A. SEWARD Poet. Wks. (1810) III. 63 Long shall thy love-lit eyes be dim If soon thou art not bravely
 free.
1948 E. BLUNDEN Shakespeare to Hardy (1964) 208 Here she is in her father's garden, flowering, love-lit,
awaiting the slow old Nurse.

love-mad adj.

1657 J. HARINGTON Hist. Polindor & Flostella (ed. 3) II. 60 Nor wonder, Chain'd, since grew Love-mad,
distracted.
1839 H. HALLAM Introd. Lit. Europe IV. vi. 451 Love-mad and yet talking in gallant conceits.
1918 E. R. BURROUGHS Tarzan & Jewels of Opar xiv. 161 I have saved his priestess from love-mad Tantor.
2003 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 13 Feb. 24/1 Among them are the love-mad queen Phaedra..and the wild-eyed
Cassandra in Trojan Women.

† love-open adj. Obs.

a1586 SIR P. SIDNEY Arcadia (1593) I. sig. H5v His loue-open eye..that eu'n did marke hir troden grasse.

† love-pensive adj. Obs.

1717 E. FENTON tr. Homer Odyssey XI, in Poems 101 Wand'ring Love-pensive near his Amber Stream.
1770 J. ARMSTRONG Forced Marriage I. ii, in Misc. II. 79 A hopeful youth to grow love-pensive!

love-proof adj.

1749 S. RICHARDSON Clarissa (ed. 2) III. lxxvi. 363 For already I am convinced, that there is not a woman in
the world that is Love-proof and Plot-proof, if she be not the person.
1810 Splendid Follies III. 121 The widow..placed herself opposite this love-proof hero.
1888 N. F. DAVIN Eos 26 Cold, love proof maid, serene, omnipotent In arms.
1941 T. R. YBARRA Young Man of Caracas i. 9 Despite her conquests, Minnie Russell remained love-proof.
2002 Times (Nexis) 27 Apr. He..is suddenly stuck with a very uncool child (Hoult), who starts invading
every corner of his love-proof life.

† love-quick adj. Obs.

1595 S. DANIEL First Fowre Bks. Ciuile Warres II. lxxix. sig. K3 [She] her loue-quicke eies which ready be,
Fastens on one.

† love-shaked adj. Obs. rare

a1616 SHAKESPEARE As you like It (1623) III. ii. 355 I am he that is so Loue-shak'd, I pray you tel me your
 remedie.

love-smitten adj.

1833 A. DOMETT Poems 174 Those eyes, whose language did surpass The eye-talk of love-smitten lass.
1996 A. LYKIARD tr. L. Aragon Irene's Cunt 64 Let your two motionless palms, your love-smitten mitts on that
prominent curve, join up towards the hardest, best point which raises the holy ogive to its peak.

† love-spent adj. Obs.

1648 R. HERRICK Hesperides sig. I4v The love-spent Youth, and love-sick Maid.
1654 T. WHITE Contempl. of Heaven II. 132 The most charming Mystery, and inchanting Riddle, that ever
love-spent bowels were able to sing or sigh out.

love-starved adj.

1880 M. H. DE LA CHEROIS-CROMMELIN Black Abbey III. 322 At first, poor love-starved Nannie listened with
avidity.
1909 Westm. Gaz. 24 July 2/1 Love-starved young Keats hath cast his gift of clay.
1996 Company Dec. 42/1 The latest trend in love-starved Hollywood, a town where you can't move for
gorgeous lovelies, arm in arm with dweebs.

love-stricken adj.

1750 H. SNELL Female Soldier 132 Our Hannah pretended to be love-stricken, at the very first Sight.
1806 T. S. SURR Winter in London II. x. 235 Bless me, the youth is love-stricken!
1992 New Yorker 24 Aug. 80/3 Willis has a fine-beaten air as a love-stricken schlub.

love-touched adj.

1831 L. E. LANDON Improvisatrice 61 Those winged words of soul and flame, Breathed in the dark-eyed
beauty's ear By some young love-touched cavalier.
1872 A. T. DE VERE Arraignment in Legends St. Patrick 7 Like birds that cannot stay their songs Love-
touched in Spring.

love-wounded adj.

1587 G. TURBERVILLE Tragicall Tales 198 Where the blinded archer with his bow Did glaunce at sundry
gallants euery day..Yet must I seeme loue wounded eke to be.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623) I. ii. 114 Loue wounded Protheus.
 1905 A. C. SWINBURNE Poems II. 109 A heart love-wounded whereto love was law.

C4. attrib. slang (frequently euphem.). As the first element in nouns

denoting the male or female genitals (or occasionally other parts of the
body considered in the context of sexual activity).

1856 W. WHITMAN Leaves of Grass (new ed.) 172 Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs,..love-flesh swelling and
deliciously aching.
c1890 My Secret Life IX. i How soft and smooth,..solid, stiff, yet semi-elastic is the male love truncheon.
1896 J. S. FARMER & W. E. HENLEY Slang IV. 241/2 Love-lane,..the female pudendum.
c1930 Confessions of Virtuous Wife 65 I so tickled the little button just at the entrance of her love grotto,
that she hugged me convulsively to her bosom.
1962 P. CRUMP Burn, Killer, Burn xlii. 386 Ya make me nervous with that death talk and my love bone goes
down.
1990 Maledicta 1988-89 10 52 Terms of endearment for women's breasts,..love pillows.
2006 Sydney Morning Herald (Nexis) 30 Nov. (Essential section) 8 Leading men often leap for the love
button without any attempt at foreplay.

C5. attrib. Applied to a game or set of games in which one side has not
scored. Cf. sense 9.

1833 [see love game n. at Compounds 6].

1878 J. MARSHALL Ann. Tennis 158 Love-set, a set in which one player wins six consecutive games; or, in case
of an advantage-set, seven consecutive games.
1884 Pall Mall Gaz. 25 Apr. 3/2 In the two first days' play the whole of the heats were love victories.
1930 Southtown Economist (Chicago) 8 Aug. 5/4 To the player winning the most love sets in proportion to
the number of matches played, will be presented a racket press.
2003 O. SHINE Lang. Tennis 75 A love match, these days, would be unheard of, but at a Seattle tournament
in 1910 Hazel Hotchkiss won 48 straight points to beat a Miss Huiskamp 6–0, 6–0 without losing a
point.

C6.

† love amour n. Obs. rare sexual love (as distinguished from friendship).

a1500 (▸a1400) Ipomedon (Chetham) (1889) 127 Owghte she covthe of love amowre.

† love-awe n. Obs. rare = love-dread n.

?c1225 (▸?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Cleo. C.vi) (1972) 315 Ma of liðe wordes þenne of sturne, for þer of kimeð
þinge best. þet is luue eie.
a1500 How Good Man taught his Son (Cambr.) 141 in Erlanger Beiträge zur Englischen Philol. (1889) 2 33
With lone read loue awe, sone, þy wyfe chastyse.
† love-badge n. Obs. rare (perhaps) a badge indicating profession of
amorous allegiance (applied humorously to a threadbare cloak).

1656 J. MENNES & J. SMITH Musarum Deliciæ 35 Another ask't me..Whether I wore a Love-bagge on my
shoulder?

love beads n. (a necklace of) coloured beads worn as a symbol of love;

spec. one symbolizing universal brotherly love (characteristically associated
with the hippie subculture of the 1960s).

1928 Havre (Montana) Daily News Promoter 22 June 2/7 (advt.) Bohemian love beads.
1967 Fresno (Calif.) Bee 23 Aug. A3/7 Hippy bag... Holds everything. Love beads, books..you name it.
1968 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 20 June 1/5 Love beads draped on him by Pierre Trudeau,
adorn former Prime Minister Pearson at Toronto political rally.
1969 R. LOWELL Notebk. 1967–8 (1970) 217 Our love-beads Rattling together to show that we were young.
1973 ‘B. MATHER’ Snowline xiii. 155 Weirdo fringed shirts, headbands, love beads..as unsavoury a bunch of
love children as I have ever seen.
2003 D. GAINES Misfit's Manifesto xv. 328 There had been long-standing rumors of Johnny all douched up
in the '60s with love beads, a headband, and bell-bottoms, but I said nothing.

love-begotten adj. now rare (of a child) = ILLEGITIMATE adj. 2a.

1761 T. SMOLLETT Sir Launcelot Greaves in Brit. Mag. Dec. 631/1 He owned she was a love-begotten babe.
1771 T. SMOLLETT Humphry Clinker I. 172 That he had been a love-begotten babe, brought up in the work-
house.
1784 Registers of River, Kent (MS) Mary, daughter of Ann Allen—Love begotten, [baptized].
1843 J. S. KNOWLES Secretary V. iv, in Dramatic Wks. (1859) 454 He was of noble stock, and told you true—
My eldest brother's love-begotten son!

† love bend n. Obs. a chain or bond of love.

a1300 in C. Brown Eng. Lyrics 13th Cent. (1932) 117 Maide dreiȝ & wel itaucht, ic em in þine loue-bende.
c1330 (▸?c1300) Guy of Warwick (Auch.) 324 Leuer him wer walk & wende, & dye in trewe loue bende.

love bite n. a playful bite on the skin from a lover; (hence) a kiss
delivered with a sucking action, leaving a temporary mark or bruise, esp. as
a sexual act; (also) a mark left on the skin by such a kiss; cf. HICKEY n. 2.

1749 J. CLELAND Mem. Woman of Pleasure II. 63 Then the turtle-billing kisses, and the poignant painless
love-bites.
 1778 tr. J. Lernutius in tr. J. Secundus Kisses (ed. 3) x. 108 (note) Poignant Love-Bites, and the nimble
Tongue, Shall the dear Wanderer recal.
1903 H. ELLIS Stud. Psychol. Sex III. 71 We may find references to love-bites in the literature of ancient as
well as of modern times... In the Indian Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana a chapter is devoted to this subject.
1972 Daily Tel. 29 Jan. 3/1 Once I saw her sitting in class with a love bite on her neck.
2004 J. MENO Hairstyles of Damned 142 She had this love bite, you know, on her neck; one bright red mark
at the base of her throat.

love-blink n. Sc. a look indicative of love; an amorous glance.

?1507 W. DUNBAR Tua Mariit Wemen (Rouen) in Poems (1998) I. 47 I cast on him a crabit e..And lettis it is a
luf blenk.
1636 S. RUTHERFORD Lett. (1863) I. 155 My Bridegroom's love-blinks fatten my weary soul.
1716 J. WILLISON Treat. conc. Sanctifying Lord's Day 261 Can you say there is nothing..would please you so
much as one Ray or Love-blink of his [sc. Christ's] Countenance?
1823 R. STORY In my Hey-day of Youth in Poet. Wks. (1857) 35 If there's gloom in her e'e..It stays na sae lang
till it quite disappears, Laughed aff by a love-blink.
1890 J. COGHILL Poems, Songs, & Sonnets 148 Mark the luve-blink in here e'e.
1927 J. CARRUTHERS Man Beset i. §3 ‘I canna thole women.’.. James laughed... ‘Wait till ane o' them gies ye
the love-blink.’

love-book n. †(a) the Old Testament book of ‘the Song of Solomon’, the
1
‘Song of Songs’ (see SONG n. Phrases 1b) (obs.); (b) a book treating of love.

?c1225 (▸?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Cleo. C.vi) (1972) 82 As mi leofmon seið to me in þet luue boke,
‘osculetur me osculo oris sui’.
1587 F. CLEMENT Petie Schole sig. Cijv Bookeloue I say, but I meane not louebookes, which..be the enemies of
vertue.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623) I. i. 19 Pro. For I will be thy beades-man, Valentine.
Val. And on a loue-booke pray for my successe?
1690 T. SHADWELL Amorous Bigotte I. i. 2 What's here? a wicked and profane Love Book.
1845 N. P. WILLIS Dashes at Life with Free Pencil ii. 64 He has written Henrietta Temple—the silliest yet
truest love-book of modern time.
1936 C. S. LEWIS Allegory of Love iv. 172 Hence those strange comings and goings in every medieval love-
book.
2003 SubStance 32 29 It is a love book, but the torturers ascribe a different value to it and don't understand
it.

love-boy n. †(a) Cupid (obs. rare); (b) a male lover (cf. lover-boy n. at
2
LOVER n. Compounds 2a) (rare); (c) a catamite.

1655 R. DAVENPORT King Iohn & Matilda V. sig. H2 The wound that foolish love-Boy there..Had struck your
 heart with.
a1656 J. USSHER Ann. World (1658) VI. 131 Pausanias, being discovered by Argilius, his love-boy.
1914 C. MACKENZIE Sinister St. II. IV. iv. 930 Good job if that love-boy of hers does punch into her. Silly cow!
She ought to know better.
1993 J. PECK Argura 61 He turns away to returning love-boy, she returns to father.

love brat n. rare = LOVE-CHILD n. (also in extended use).

a1700 in R. Nares Gloss. (1822) Four love brats will be laid to thee.
1998 Herald (Glasgow) (Nexis) 12 May 28 Your own zany brand of humour..is surely the cheeky love brat of
Howard Stern and Jenny Eclair.

love broker n. a person who acts as an agent between lovers (also in

extended use).

a1616 SHAKESPEARE Twelfth Night (1623) III. ii. 34 There is no loue-Broker in the world, can more preuaile in
mans commendation with woman, then report of valour.
1698 E. SETTLE Farther Def. Dramatick Poetry 16 Our Diminitive Love-broker has no more Hand in the
Affair, then meer starting the Game.
1794 G. PALOMBA L'Amore Contrastato I. vii. 13 I am no love-broker.
1885 Times 8 May 11/4 She reveals herself as a love-broker, a weekly lender of love.
1988 Toronto Star (Nexis) 30 May C4 (headline) Movie casting directors really love brokers... At least six of
their [on-screen] pairings have developed into real-life romances.
2007 San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News (Nexis) 20 June H3 That 21st-century dating experience led Koechel
to seek out a practitioner of an ages-old custom: matchmaking... These love brokers reflect modern life.

love call n. (a) a call or other expression of emotion used by one lover to
another; (b) a cry or sound made by an animal during courtship or in order
to attract a mate.

1600 Englands Helicon sig. I4 (title) Phillidaes Loue-call to her Coridon, and his replying.
1824 M. R. MITFORD Our Village I. 198 In less than two minutes Harriet heard the love-call sounded at
Sally's gate.
1880 A. H. SWINTON Insect Variety v. 209 A love-call that reproduces..the strutting, wing-drumming, and
rustling of the males of the turkey and grouse at the pairing time.
1887 Athenæum 31 Dec. 901/3 He [sc. Mr. Rowbotham] disagrees with Darwin in finding the origin of all
instrumental music in the love-call.
1934 J. A. THOMSON & E. J. HOLMYARD Biol. for Everyman I. xx. 645 Partly a challenge..it is also a love-call;
and the male bird has a simple courtship ritual of strutting before his desired mate.
2002 New Scientist 15 June 32/1 In Panama, predatory bats home in on the night-time love calls of male
tungara frogs.
† love cause n. Obs. a love affair, a matter of the heart; (in later uses also)
one regarded as a case that may be argued.

1601 tr. M. Martínez 9th Pt. Mirrour of Knight-hood sig. Hh2v The great and famous Captaine Bembo rose
up, who in Loue causes [Sp. en casos de amor] desired euer to bee the first.
a1616 SHAKESPEARE As you like It (1623) IV. i. 91 In all this time there was not anie man died in his owne
person (videlicet) in a loue cause .
1668 P. M. Cimmerian Matron 11 in W. Charleton Ephesian & Cimmerian Matrons Her Clients were often
forced to gratifie her, for solliciting their Love-causes, with such Fees.
1798 A. SCHINK tr. A. von Kotzebue Stranger IV. i. 46 You must..plead my Love-cause with Mrs. Smith.
1824 C. M. SEDGWICK Redwood III. xx. 130 Depend on it, a love cause is better in the hands of the principal
than the most eloquent agent.

love comic n. a comic (COMIC n. 4) in which the principal ingredient of

the stories is love.

1948 Waukesha (Winsconsin) Daily Freeman 26 Feb. 10/3 The reader who fights for each installment of
high adventure, mass homicide, glamor and love comics is an ‘ego enhancement’ type.
1951 M. MCLUHAN Mech. Bride 151/2 It recently shifted a large section of its enterprises from murder to love
comics.
1970 G. GREER Female Eunuch 214 The market is contested by..love comics and fotoromance.
1992 S. THAROOR Show Business (1995) v. 254 The house is already littered with cassette tapes, love comics,
costume jewelry, and pinup posters.

love-cup n. †(a) a love potion or philtre; = LOVING CUP n. 1 (obs.); (b) =

LOVING CUP n. 2.

1561 J. DAUS tr. H. Bullinger Hundred Serm. vpon Apocalips xlii. 280 Poysoning, louecuppes, and
inchauntmentes [L. venena, philtra & incantationes], were in the time of S. Iohn most frequented,
through out the Romane Empire.
1680 H. MORE Apocalypsis Apocalypseos xviii. 182 Her poisoned Philter or Love-Cup.
1792 E. SIBLY New & Compl. Illustr. Occult Sci. (new ed.) IV. 1111 As for philtres, love-cups, and the like, they
unquestionably proceed from a natural cause.
1849 D. ROCK Church of our Fathers IV. xi. 86 The love-cup was sent about.
1891 A. AUSTIN Human Trag. III. 162 Then shall no love-cup cheat the toils that tire Nor care be chased by
wedlock's staunch caress.
1925 E. H. HAIGHT Horace & Art of Enjoym. 204 In reply to his piteous appeal Canidia only invokes Night
and Diana to aid her in preparing a more potent love cup for the man who scorns her.
1933 Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald 18 Apr. 1/2 He had admitted buying for $4 the silver ‘love cup’.
2000 Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent) (Nexis) 25 Apr. Mead and fruit wine were served in Tudor three-handled
‘love-cups’.
 love curl n. a lovelock, esp. one on the forehead.

1840 Burton's Gentleman's Mag. Feb. 69 An aggravator, or love curl, of a delicate roundness, hung low
upon the imperial forehead.
1926 T. E. LAWRENCE Seven Pillars (subscribers' ed.) lxxxvii. 461 In command was young Metaab, stripped to
his skimp riding-drawers for hard work, with his black love-curls awry.
1971 Sun (Lowell, Mass.) 9 Sept. 21/2 The ‘Love Touch’ is a casual cap of a coiffure highlighted by love curls,
braids or waves.

love darg n. Sc. a service or piece of work given or performed as a gift

from one neighbour to another.

1761 Petition P. Yeaman in Sessions Papers 28 July 13 That he and others went [to clean the mill-leads],
and some did not; which made the deponent believe it was a love-dargue.
1895 ‘I. MACLAREN’ Days Auld Lang Syne 338 It's a love-darg,..because ye've been sober..they juist want to
show kindness, bein' oor neeburs.
1960 Huntly Express 27 May in Sc. National Dict. (1965) VI. 166/1 Mr Smith seems to have been a popular
type and instead of offering him a present or standing him a complimentary dinner, the farmers
decided to treat him to a love darg.

love dart n. Zool. (in gastropod molluscs of the genus Helix) a

calcareous spicule that a snail drives into the body wall of its partner prior
to copulation.

1877 F. P. PASCOE Zool. Classif. 122 A curious organ is a pyriform muscular sac, containing one or two
slender conical styles, which can be thrust out through the aperture of the sac; they are found in certain
snails, and with them they pierce each other's skin. They are known as ‘love-darts’.
1958 J. E. MORTON Molluscs vii. 132 The vagina develops also a muscular caecum, the dart sac, in which is
produced a fine-pointed calcareous shaft, about 5/16in. long, and delicately ridged. This is the telum
amoris, or ‘love dart’, which is exchanged by the partners with some velocity before courtship.
2005 Trends in Ecol. & Evol. 20 582/2 The use of the love dart (laced with hormones from the dart sac-
associated mucus glands) increases the number of escaping spermatozoa.

love-deed n. now rare an action proceeding from love.

c1390 (▸?a1325) Long Charter of Christ (Vernon) A. l. 62 in F. J. Furnivall Minor Poems Vernon MS (1901)
II. 642 (MED) And þis I made for Monkynde, Mi loue-dedes to haue in mynde.

a1631 J. DONNE Poems (1633) 223 Gentle love-deeds, as blossomes on a bough, From loves awakened root
do bud out now.
1846 J. KEBLE Lyra Innocentium (1862) 58 So many love-deeds done, to cease Her kindly toil..Small joy to
her would seem.
1891 T. D. SULLIVAN tr. Ailleen & Baille in Blanaid & Other Poems 98 The saddest, sweetest love deeds done
 In Ulster's noble land.
1911 E. TOLDRIDGE Mother's Love Songs in William & Mary Q. 19 296 Love-words, love-deeds, and tenderer,
too, Than we give to any other.

love dose n. = love draught n.

1709 J. JOHNSON Clergy-man's Vade Mecum: Pt. II 69 Pharmacy probably signifies here..the compounding
of philtrums or love-doses.
1966 Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram 11 Aug. A22/1 (headline) Eagles get love dose... Golden eagles..are
being given a love potion because the birds will not mate.

love draught n. a love potion or philtre.

1647 R. STAPYLTON tr. Juvenal Sixteen Satyrs 85 Their love-draughts, charmes, and druggs [L. hippomanes
carmenque..coctumque uenenum].
1751 J. STIRLING tr. Horace Wks. I. V. v. 159/2 Dry'd liver might be a love draught [L. amoris poculum].
1841 G. BORROW Zincali I. II. i. 228 The women..dealing in love draughts and diablerie.
1906 Westm. Gaz. 27 Aug. 3/1 The love-draught which Tristram and Iseult drink together.
2002 Herald (Glasgow) (Nexis) 13 July 5 We talked on into the night about the morality of love draughts.

† love-dread n. Obs. fear that proceeds from love.

a1400 Ancrene Riwle (Pepys) (1976) 159 Haue swich drede to hym as þe good wyf haþ to hir housbonde, þat
is, a loue drede for loue þat sche haþ to hym.
a1425 WYCLIF Sel. Eng. Wks. (1871) II. 316 Love-drede is in men wiþouten siche servile drede.
c1450 Jacob's Well (1900) 243 For þe loue-dreed þat sche hadde to god.
1641 W. VAUGHAN Sovles Exercise v. 181 He must take up the Crosse with Love-dread Note.

love drug n. any drug that (supposedly) provokes or increases sexual

desire, or enhances sexual performance; an aphrodisiac.

1613 J. MARSTON & W. BARKSTED Insatiate Countesse V. sig. I4v Let him that hath drunke loue drugs trust a
woman.
1876 J. B. L. WARREN Soldier of Fortune IV. iv. 358 He would rub the love-drug from his eyes.
1954 Rev. Eng. Stud. 5 270 ‘Budded bosom-peaks’ seems to me too hackneyed..an indelicacy to come from
Tennyson, even though he gives it to the mouth of Lucretius mad with a love-drug.
1969 Rolling Stone 17 May 3/4 The new ‘love drug’, MDA (3, 4-methylenedioxy-phenyl-iso-propylamine).
2002 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 22 Apr. 5/8 A love drug that claims to trigger erections more quickly and
safely than Viagra is expected to reach the Australian market next year.

† love-drunk n. Obs. rare intoxication with love.

 ▸a1393 GOWER Confessio Amantis (Fairf.) VI. 307 (MED) Lovedrunke is the meschief Above alle othre the
most chief.

love-favour n. (a) a gift (such as a ribbon, a glove, etc.) given to a lover,

to be worn as a token of affection (see FAVOUR n. 7); †(b) favourable regard
occasioned by love (obs.); †(c) a kindness extended on behalf of love (obs.).

1597 BP. J. HALL Virgidemiarum: 1st 3 Bks. I. ii. 4 Deck't with loue-fauors.
1696 J. LEAD Fountain of Gardens 85 In her Love-Favour you may all abide, to whom this Word of Counsel
shall come.
1703 T. BAKER Tunbridge-walks I. i. 8 I never desire any private Love-favours from 'em.
1860 T. B. ALDRIDGE Ballad of Babie Bell 97 Such carrying of love-favors and pink notes!
1921 Nebraska State Jrnl. 18 Oct. 6/8 Thou [sc. a flower] wert pluckt and given to me, For a love-favor.

† love-feat n. Obs. rare an act of courtship.

1598 SHAKESPEARE Love's Labour's Lost V. ii. 124 And euery one his Loue-feat will aduance, Vnto his seuerall
Mistres.

love fest n. orig. U.S. (usu. depreciative) an event or interaction

characterized by (mutual) uncritical appreciation or affinity.

1907 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 6 Oct. (Sporting section) 9/3 After the fight was over the St. Louis papers
referred to the affair as a kid glove love fest.
1950 F. HOWLEY Berlin Command vi. 109 I grew skeptical about having a love fest after such a battle.
2006 Sunday Times (Nexis) 12 Mar. 15 Keating's extended chat with the writer..was an unexpurgated love-
fest.

love fever n. lovesickness; (a feeling of) overwhelming or tormenting

passion.

1637 S. RUTHERFORD Let. 7 Mar. in Joshua Redivivus (1664) ci. 201 I dare beleeve no evil of Christ: if he
would cool my love-fever for himself with reall presence & possession, I would be rich.
1753 S. RICHARDSON Hist. Sir Charles Grandison I. 88 But when the Love-fever was at the height, did you
make any-body uneasy with your passion?
1868 M. COLLINS Sweet Anne Page III. 105 The love-fever has variable symptoms.
1952 Ann. Amer. Acad. Polit. & Social Sci. 279 214/2 Weinstein argues effectively for love as the product of
responsible family living and sanely deplores the love fever brand of romanticism.
2005 Barrie (Ont.) Examiner (Nexis) 2 May A8 Being romantic is terrific once you're in a relationship, but
not if you work yourself into a love fever before you've even heard a Yes to a first date.
 love game n. (a) amorous sport or play; an instance of this; (b) Sport
and Games a game in which one side does not score (cf. sense 9).

a1375 William of Palerne (1867) l. 1020 (MED) William wold fonde for to pleie in þat place þe priue loue
game.
1591 Troublesome Raigne Iohn sig. D2v Is all the bloud yspilt on either part..Growne to a loue-game and a
Bridall feast?
1819 Metropolis (ed. 2) I. 133 It may be an useful lesson to yourself and to others who play the love-game at
piquet.
1833 T. HOOK Parson's Daughter I. vi. 106 Can't make a hazard..and has lost two love games.
1897 EARL OF SUFFOLK et al. Encycl. Sport I. 264/2 (Curling) Souter, to score a love game; not to allow the
opponents to score.
1925 F. HARRIS My Life & Loves I. 182 I waited a little while and then began the love game.
1978 Detroit Free Press 5 Mar. C2/1 Connors..quickly served a love game to tie the score.
1985 I. OPIE & P. OPIE Singing Game iv. 126 ‘Now you're married we wish you joy’ is, of course, tagged on to
many a love game.
2003 O. SHINE Lang. Tennis 80 An exchange of love games moved the set into a tie-break.

love glove n. slang a condom.

1975 W. KEMPTON Teachers Guide Sex Educ. for Persons with Learning Disabilities iv. 55 (table)
Synonyms..Condom..rubber..sheik..love-glove.
1987 TV Guide 7 Nov. 6/2 Their standards and practices permitted the words ‘prophylactic’ and
‘contraceptive’ and even a student who calls a condom a ‘love glove’.
2005 L. SUSSMAN Happy, Healthy & Sexy vi. 140 Remember your three Ls—lube (lots of it, the water-based
kind), love glove and logic.

love god n. (a) Mythol. a god associated with or ruling over love and sex
1
(cf. sex god n. (a) at SEX n. Compounds 3); (b) a man likened to a love god,
esp. in being (sexually) attractive or sexually accomplished.

1598 G. CHAPMAN in Marlowe & G. Chapman Hero & Leander (new ed.) III. sig. Fv The treasure which the
Loue-god let him ioy In his deare Hero.
1609 SHAKESPEARE Sonnets cliv. sig. K The little Loue-God lying once a sleepe.
1887 C. BOWEN tr. Virgil Æneid I. 662 She addresses the Love-god plumed for the flight.
1961 W. BRANDON Indians 113/2 The Pan of the later Pueblos, a humpbacked ithyphallic love god usually
shown leeringly playing a seductive flute.
1982 Washington Post (Nexis) 19 Nov. (Weekend section) 19 James Dean, her safely dead love god.
2002 Loaded July (Encycl. Eroticus Suppl.) 4/1 Best position for aquatic fun. Deep penetration coupled
with the steam should assure your status as a love god.
 love goddess n. (a) Mythol. a goddess associated with or ruling over
1
love and sex (cf. sex goddess n. (a) at SEX n. Compounds 3); (b) a woman
likened to a love goddess, esp. in being voluptuous or (sexually) attractive
1
(cf. VENUS n. 4).

1837 T. CARLYLE French Revol. II. I. xii. 89 Beauty no longer swims decorated in her garniture, like Love-
goddess hidden-revealed in her Paphian clouds.
1949 Mansfield (Ohio) News-Jrnl. 2 Jan. 7/7 Worshipped by the throng that has always revered cleavage
above dramatic ability, Rita became what Life magazine termed the love goddess of the twentieth
century.
1995 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Sept. 226/2 The love-goddess contours of her body.
2001 Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 145 458 Aphrodite, the love-goddess,..bears a strong resemblance to the
Semitic love-goddess Ishtar.

love handle n. slang (orig. U.S.) (usually in pl.) excess or unwanted fat
at the waist.

1970 Current Slang (Univ. S. Dakota) 4 III.–IV. 20 Love handles, the fat on one's sides.
1989 T. CLANCY Clear & Present Danger xiii. 306 No longer a young man.., love handles at his waist, much of
his hair gone.
2005 Cosmopolitan Aug. 141/4 My girlfriend had a tummy tuck to get rid of her belly... She says it was
worth it, but I'd rather have her love handles.

love-hate n. [after German Liebe-Hass (1915 or earlier, in Freud; now

usually Hassliebe ); compare earlier hate-love n. at HATE n. Compounds 2]
orig. Psychoanal. (a) a contrastive state of both love and hate existing
towards the same object (rare); (b) attrib. designating or involving a
relationship characterized by ambivalent feelings of both love and hate.

1925 J. RIVIERE et al. tr. S. Freud Coll. Papers IV. 79 So the second antithesis, love-hate, reproduces the
polarity pleasure-pain, which is bound up with the former.
1937 H. NICOLSON Diary 16 June (1966) 302 Goering..has the love-hate complex of the average German
bourgeois for England.
1950 E. J. SIMMONS Dostoevsky xix. 315 Versilov's..love-hate relations with Katerina which conclude with his
mad attempt to murder her.
1972 LD. ROBENS Ten Year Stint ii. 15 My personal relationship with the men and their leaders was
schizophrenic—a sort of love-hate relationship.
2002 M. HOLROYD Wks. on Paper 308 Television..has become the chief vehicle for a love-hate obsession with
‘personalities’.

love-hate v. trans. to manifest a love-hate relationship towards (a

person, etc.); to love while at the same time hating.

1963 Sunday Gleaner Mag. (Kingston, Jamaica) 14 July 13/4 If he love-hates his mother, he's a neurotic
personality.
1967 A. WILSON No Laughing Matter II. 216 She love-hates him enough to be unable to leave him.
1985 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 20 Jan. III. 1 Places in the city that are visited, pointed out, love-hated and
pondered.
2002 A. N. WILSON Victorians xxii. 339 The boozy old boilers, the Mrs Gamps and Betsy Prigs whom
Dickens love-hated, stayed away.

love-hatred n. an ambivalent feeling (for a person, etc.) consisting both

of love and hatred.

1928 Ogden Standard-Examiner (Ogden City, Utah) 5 Aug. 4/1 Coupled to this love-hatred feature of the
Smith situation, there is the great American admiration for the personality and career of Herbert
Hoover.
1951 H. HATFIELD Thomas Mann iii. 36 The protagonists in Two Friends, a novella of the love-hatred
between a responsible burgher and a ne'er-do-well, afford a certain parallel to Thomas and Christian
Buddenbrook.
1961 Times 18 Mar. 11/4 The love-hatred of Isolde for Tristan.
2002 Evening Standard (Nexis) 12 May (ES Mag.) 3 London born and bred, I share the love-hatred for my
city of most Londoners.

love heart n. †(a) a loving or tender heart (obs. rare); (b) chiefly Brit. a
representation of the human heart as a symmetrical figure formed of two
curves meeting in a point at one end and a cusp at the other, having
romantic associations; (also) an object formed in this shape; cf. HEART n. 24.

1649 J. ELLISTONE tr. J. Böhme Epist. XVII. viii. 140 I onely sought the pleasant love heart of Jesus Christ [Ger.
das liebreiche Hertz Jesu Christi] to hide my selfe therein.
1907 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 8 Sept. 20/2 Above the altar hung two banded hearts of blue and white
forget-me-nots, from which depended by streamers and love hearts of tulle a floral wedding belle of
white tuberoses.
1990 Pink Paper 10 Feb. 5/4 Love Consultants will erect a giant loveheart sign outside the house of the
admiree.
2002 R. WATSON in A. Cattanach Story so Far iv. 95 She always drew love hearts.

† love-hood n. Obs. a hood made of thin crape or gauze material; spec. a

mourning-cape (see sense 11).

1650 L. LAWRENCE Epithalamium 6 Night in her Love-hood..Enters (the friendly crowd) attyr'd in Jet.
1663 R. BOYLE Exper. & Consid. Colours (1664) 198 Such a kind of Transparency, as that of a Sive, a piece of
 Cyprus, or a Love-Hood.
1747 M. DELANY Autobiogr. & Corr. (1861) II. 478 I shall make no more dark things; after three months black
silk is worn with love hood.
1861 Times 19 Mar. 5/5 The ladies to wear black silk, plain muslin or long lawn, crepe or love hoods.
1893 B. TUCKERMAN P. Stuyvesant 151 The scarlet petticoat was to go to Gertruyd, the black love-hood to
Annetje.

love interest n. a theme or episode in a story, film, etc., of which the

main element is the affection of lovers; (also) an actor or character who
represents this aspect.

1778 A. FERGUSON Let. 7 Feb. in H. Mackenzie Life J. Home 117 I can conceive that the substitution of a love-
interest for an interest of state, which the audience expected from the name of Alfred, may have
baulked them.
1868 Times 25 Sept. 7/3 The statement that Richardson has created the love interest of modern novels is
only true in the sense that Richardson created the modern novel.
1892 H. JAMES Notebks. (1947) 129 There must be a ‘love-interest’—which is one and the same with the other
parts of the situation.
1938 R. G. COLLINGWOOD Princ. Art v. 84 The cinema, where it is said to be a principle accepted by almost
every manager that no film can succeed without a love-interest.
1961 C. S. LEWIS Exper. in Crit. iv. 38 The story of excitement or mystery usually has a ‘love interest’ tacked
on to it.
1990 Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) 28 Oct. IV. 7/3 She usually plays ‘the love interest’. But she hopes
that will change as movies take a feminine tilt.
2004 Times Lit. Suppl. 4 June 18/1 The love interest, needless to say, was not with Briseis, but with
Patroclus.

love-lad n. rare (a) a lover (poet. in later use); †(b) Cupid (obs.).

1586 W. WEBBE Disc. Eng. Poetrie sig. Iiiii The Cornation that among the loue laddes wontes to be worne
much.
1632 J. VICARS tr. Virgil XII Aeneids i. 24 This love-lad [sc. Cupid] straight his mothers minde obeyes.
1907 Academy 19 Oct. 29/1 All along the willow-way My love-lad lies sleeping [i.e. dead].

1 2
† love-lake n. [ < LOVE n. + LAKE n. ] Obs. rare = love-sport n.

c1330 (▸?a1300) Sir Tristrem (1886) l. 2020 Her loue laike þou bi hald For þe loue of me.

† love-lass n. Obs. rare a (female) sweetheart.

1594 R. BARNFIELD Affectionate Shepheard sig. Giiiv Helen, Maenelaus louing, lou'd, louelie, a loue-lasse, Till
spight full Fortune from a loue-lasse made her a loue-lesse Wife.
 1610 R. NICCOLS England's Eliza in Mirour for Magistrates (new ed.) Induct. 776 So soone as Tython's love-
lasse gan display Her opall colours in her Easterne throne.

1 2
† love-late n. [ < LOVE n. + LAIT n. ] Obs. rare (in pl.) amorous looks or
demeanour.

?c1225 (▸?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Cleo. C.vi) (1972) 73 His echȝe aa bi hald þe ȝef þu makest..ani luuelates
towart unðeawes.
a1400 Ancrene Riwle (Pepys) (1976) 38 Ȝiue me þi louelates, ȝe, to me and to non oþer.

† love-libel n. Obs. rare a love letter or message.

1602 T. DEKKER Satiro-mastix sig. E4v Sir Vau. I desire you to..read this Paper... Mini. Ile receiue no Loue
libels perdy, but by word a mouth.

love life n. the aspect of a person's life relating to relationships with

lovers.

1855 Putnam's Monthly Mag. Dec. 657/2 The love-life of Weatherford, his dauntless gallantry, his
marvelous personal adventures and hair-breadth escapes, and chief of all, his wonderful eloquence.
1919 M. K. BRADBY Psycho-anal. v. 59 The character and development of the infantile love for father and
mother will have an influence on the whole love-life of later years.
1934 ‘R. WEST’ Mod. Rake's Progress 74 Ecclesiastics..called out to sanctify the love-life of our puny little
George.
1959 A. CHRISTIE Cat among Pigeons viii. 89 Even Games Mistresses may have their love lives.
1972 T. ARDIES This Suitcase xiii. 140 He's the guy who's trying to break up my love life.
2004 New Woman May 70/4 After she successfully sorts out her boss's love life, she becomes a love trainer
and puts her all into sussing other people's relationships.

love-light n. radiance (of the eyes) expressing love; an instance of this.

1833 H. COLERIDGE She is not Fair (song) 10 I cease not to behold The love-light in her eye.
1852 P. J. BAILEY Festus (ed. 5) 189 Her bright heart With lovelight glowed.
1907 Westm. Gaz. 17 May 2/3 In your dew-bright eyes,..Love-light shone beaming.
1950 N. COWARD Sail Away in B. Day N. Coward: Compl. Lyrics (1998) 263/2 When the love-light is fading
in your sweetheart's eye, Sail away—sail away.
1988 New Idea (Melbourne) 19 Mar. 4/1 Kylie: is that a lovelight in her eyes?

† love-liking n. Obs. sexual affection (in early use also: spiritual longing).

c1390 in C. Brown Relig. Lyrics 14th Cent. (1924) 178 Þat is Marie, Moder fre..A loue-likyng is come to me
 To serue þat ladi.
▸a1398 J. TREVISA tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 259 In alle bestes is
appetit of loue lykynge.
c1405 (▸c1390) CHAUCER Sir Thopas (Hengwrt) l. 138 Of romances that been reales Of Popes and of
Cardynales And eek of loue-liking.
1579 T. NORTH tr. Plutarch Liues 1116 Sometimes she [sc. Poppaea] woulde shut her dore against
Nero..bicause she woulde keepe Nero in breath, and in loue liking still.
a1662 H. LAWES Treasury of Musick (1669) II. 20 Short Love liking may find Jars, the Love that lasteth
knows no Wars.
1834 T. DE QUINCEY Sketches Life & Manners in Tait's Edinb. Mag. Mar. 93/1 Few men go, or can go, beyond
a little love-liking, as it is called.
1880 J. PAYNE New Poems 2 I chide it for lack of love-liking.

love line n. (a) a love-letter; a line written by a lover (chiefly in pl.); now
rare; (b) Palmistry = heart line n. at HEART n., int., and adv. Compounds
3a.

1609 T. HEYWOOD Troia Britanica 221 Now I these Loue-lines write.

a1616 SHAKESPEARE All's Well that ends Well (1623) II. i. 77 To giue great Charlemaine a pen in's hand And
write to her a loue-line .
?1668 T. JORDAN Wealth Out-witted Ep. sig. A2v Those days were spent in Love-lines, Drolls and Laughter.
1709 Tatler No. 40. 242 Shall this fresh ornament of the world, These precious love-lines, pass with other
common things Amongst the wastes of time.
1914 H. WALES Brocklebank Riddle 263 I've been told that I have a very interesting left hand. The love line is
in the left hand.
1977 New Musical Express 16 Jan. 8/4 Little Bob looks up from Velda's love lines and takes a slug of
Southern Comfort.
2006 Spokesman-Rev. (Spokane, Washington) (Nexis) 27 Oct. W12 The energy helps her interpret the lines
of the palm, including the life line..and the heart or love line (from below the forefinger to below the
pinky).

love match n. a marriage or engagement of which the motive is love,

and not worldly advantage or convenience.

1656 DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE Natures Pictures X. 346 A procuring Bawd is to make Love-matches, and contrive
Love-meetings.
1749 H. FIELDING Tom Jones V. XIII. viii. 70 This was a Love-Match, as they call it, on both Sides; this is, a
Match between two Beggars.
1869 TROLLOPE He knew he was Right I. xxv. 194 It was little enough she got by marrying him... But it was a
love-match.
1915 Encycl. Relig. & Ethics VIII. 450/1 The Kāmasūtra permits love matches generally.
1997 C. SHAW Sc. Myths & Customs ix. 211 Folklore invariably presents the marriage of Malcolm and
Margaret as a love match.
 love matter n. an issue relating to romantic love; a love affair, a
relationship (chiefly in pl.).

1603 P. HOLLAND tr. Plutarch Morals 1312 Eudoxus..asked the reason, why Ceres had no charge and
superintendance over Love matters [Fr. des amours, Gk. τῶν ἐρωτικῶν].
1774 D. TURNER Fashionable Daughter III. 149 I do in reality think it an injury done a parent..to carry a love
matter so far as I have undoubtedly done, without at least asking his consent.
1868 E. EDWARDS Life Sir W. Ralegh I. xv. 299 She was somewhat precocious in love matters.
2007 Daily News (N.Y.) (Nexis) 11 Feb. (Sports Final ed.) 37 Taurus... With love matters, stand up for
yourself to avoid being taken advantage of.

† love-money n. Obs. rare coins broken in two and divided between

lovers or friends as a token of remembrance.

1837 Numismatic Jrnl. 1 141 The custom of breaking love-money as a pledge of fidelity.

love nest n. colloq. a place of retreat characterized by warmth and love;

(in earlier use esp.) a home established by a newly married couple, or by a
husband for his wife; (now more often) a secluded retreat for (esp. illicit or
clandestine) lovers.

1853 A. HOUSSAYE Philosophers & Actresses 222 His hand..had constructed in this palace, a graceful love-
nest for his young wife.
1919 U. SINCLAIR Brass Check xi. 65 So before long we began to notice dark hints in the newspapers; such
esoteric phrases as ‘Sinclair's love-nest’.
1970 G. GREER Female Eunuch 154 Nobody knew of his love-nest.
1972 ‘H. HOWARD’ Nice Day for Funeral ix. 124 Pamela and Frankie were sharing a love-nest at Lakeland
Towers.
1999 C. BROOKMYRE One Fine Day in Middle of Night (2000) 84 The bastard had been using the place as his
own private, five-star love nest, and the skeleton staff on duty..had assumed she was his wife.

† love-nettled adj. Obs. rare deeply in love, aroused by love (see also
quot. 1599 at NETTLE v. 3).

1622 T. WALKLEY tr. J. de Luna Pursuit Hist. Lazarillo xvi. 184 I was so loue-nettled, that if they had asked
me the Phœnix..I would haue giuen it them.

love note n. (a) a musical note in a love song (chiefly in pl.); (also) an
animal's love call; (b) a written note expressing love, a brief love letter.
 1795 J. HUNT Miscellany 25 The noise resembling the beating of a watch, is only the love-note of these
animals.
1840 C. NORTON Dream 205 The borrowed love-notes of thy echoing lyre.
1842 A. DE VERE Waldenses 56 Take back this paper To Him that sent it... When I have written A little love
note on the other side.
1940 R. GRAVES No more Ghosts 41 Dangerous it had been with love-notes To serenade Queen Famine.
1960 J. KEROUAC Let. 14 Sept. in Sel. Lett. 1957–69 (1999) 263 I write the hostess a love note saying ‘I love
you because you're a simple brunette.’
2006 Time Out N.Y. 11 May 91/3 Tossed and forgotten items—love notes, missing-pet posters, grocery lists,
etc.

love object n. the object (esp. a person) on which love is centred.

1869 Catholic World 8 821/2 This love-object is a third person.

1916 Criminal Sci. Monogr. Sept. 249 The child is now capable of the choice of a love-object accompanied
by erotic feelings.
1925 J. RIVIERE et al. tr. S. Freud Coll. Papers IV. 45 In the choice of their love-object they have taken as their
model not the mother but their own selves.
1960 C. DAY LEWIS Buried Day vii. 137 When it became apparent that..as a love-object, I myself was
unsatisfactory, she started on dogs.
1973 S. FISHER Female Orgasm xv. 437 Orgasm difficulties were observed to be linked to concern about the
instability or potential loss of love objects.
2003 New Republic 12 May 37/2 A classic serial monogamist, Breton clung to the notion of l'amour fou, the
idea of the one predestined love object.

love offering n. a gift offered as an expression of love, devotion, etc.;

spec. (chiefly U.S.) a charitable donation, esp. one made to a church or
missionary.

1620 J. LEWIS Ignis Cœlestis 104 By prayer we shall offer vp a loue-offering, sweet and delightfull to the Lord
our God.
1791 J. WHITE Adventures King Richard Coeur-de-lion II. xxviii. 168 [A] tender lay, to be presented as a
love-offering to the incomparable Celestina.
1893 Decatur (Illinois) Daily Republican (Electronic text) 16 Sept. The spokesman..presented the
donations, and the parson..replied in a few touching and appropriate remarks. It was a love-offering
from an appreciative people.
1935 Times 19 Nov. 16/6 (advt.) We need £200,000 in gifts or legacies. Send your donation, your love-
offering..to the Treasurer.
1968 Jrnl. Sci. Stud. Relig. 7 29/2 Pentecostal financial activity is personal and reciprocal,..money is given
as a ‘love-offering’ in direct proportion to the importance of the non-material gift that the donor feels
he has received.
2006 Daily Star (Nexis) 3 Nov. 38 What is the most exotic love offering ever made? In third place is
Emperor Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal in memory of his favourite wife.
† love paper n. Obs. nonce-wd. a love letter.

a1627 T. MIDDLETON No Wit (1657) I. 22 Peruse this love paper as you go. Mr Low. A Letter?

† love-pass n. Obs. = love passage n.

1872 T. HARDY Under Greenwood Tree I. I. viii. 113 Good luck attended Dick's love-passes during the meal.
He sat next Fancy.

love passage n. an incident of amatory experience; a romantic interlude.

1661 Princess Cloria V. 512 Some years after these enterchanges of love passages, Astratius of a
sudden,..waved her company.
1821 SCOTT Kenilworth xvi, in Waverley Novels (1831) XXII. 300 There had been some love passages
betwixt him and Mistress Amy Robsart.
1845 C. M. KIRKLAND Western Clearings 106 No one..had ever been able to ascertain whether there had
actually been any ‘love-passages’ between them or not.
1865 E. B. TYLOR Res. Early Hist. Mankind iii. 43 Love-passages of the gods and heroes.
1890 San Antonio (Texas) Daily Light (Electronic text) 9 Sept. This Cousin Evelyn had had a horrible love
passage with Fergus McIntire.
1930 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 3 July 7/2 Fifi engages in her first love passage with the fugitive,
Murray.

love pat n. a tap or gentle blow to indicate love or affection (cf. love tap
n. and love-tick n.); also in extended use.

1846 U.S. Mag. & Democratic Rev. Mar. 211/1 Many of his subjects had a feeling sense of his royal grace
and condescension, in the love-pats with which he honored them.
1876 C. D. WARNER Winter on Nile i. 24 Garibaldi received one of his wounds, a sort of love-pat of fame.
1931 E. A. WETHERALD Lyrics & Sonnets 244 A little love-pat.
1999 in A. Garrod et al. Souls looking Back xvi. 273 I couldn't bring myself to return her touch. We never
talked about what her ‘love pats’ were about.

love-pennant n. rare (perhaps) a pennant with which a departing ship

is decorated.

1889 A. CONAN DOYLE Micah Clarke xxxiv. 377 You are like the same ship when the battle and the storm
have..torn the love-pennants from her peak.

love philtre n. = PHILTRE n.; a love potion.

 1665 J. CROWNE Pandion & Amphigenia 2 A lip-sick Lover, who with quaint Rhetorications can paint his
Mistress face..and think her tears love philters.
1834 E. BULWER-LYTTON Last Days of Pompeii I. I. ii. 17 The very air seems to have taken a love philtre, so
handsome does every face without a beard seem in my eyes.
1921 E. L. WHITE Andivius Hedulio I. v. 74 She had a local reputation for magical powers in the way of
spells..love philtres, fortune-telling..and good advice on all subjects.
1995 Nichols Garden Nursery 50/1 (advt.) Cupids [sic] Dart... Violet, daisy-like flowers with dark centers.
The name refers to the Greek custom of using the plant in love philters.

love pill n. (a) a dose of a love potion, typically in tablet form (cf. PHILTRE
n.); (now also) any of various pills intended to improve libido, sexual
performance, or sexual satisfaction; (b) slang (with the) the hallucinogenic
drug 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, commonly known as Ecstasy.

a1645 W. STRODE Floating Island (1655) IV. xiii. sig. E3/2 Sir Amorous buyes a Love-pill.
1859 Humbug vi. 45 Were an enterprising Yankee permitted to advertise ‘Love Pills’..in one year he would
amass a fortune.
1931 Lima (Ohio) News 24 Mar. 5/3 Balanescu was convicted of the sensational ‘love pill killing’ of Dorothy
Kirk... The state alleged he fed the girl strange ‘love potions’ in a series of weird medical experiments
until she died.
1968 T. LEARY Politics of Ecstasy v. 100 Mind-altering chemicals... The scientist has to take the love pill.
1998 Mirror (Nexis) 21 July (Features section) 22 Our man..gives his verdict on the revolutionary love pill.
My girlfriend Claire and I have a satisfying love life—but I couldn't turn down the chance to road-test
Viagra.
2006 Daily Tel. (Sydney) (Nexis) 19 Aug. 5 (heading) Once..the drug of choice at rave parties and city
nightclubs but now the love pill has come home.

love play n. (a) (an act or instance of) lovemaking; wooing, caressing,
spec. sexual foreplay; also fig.; (b) a romantic play; a play about or
concerning love.

c1390 in F. J. Furnivall Minor Poems Vernon MS (1901) 474 Sore I seo þe buye Al my loue-plawe.
1651 J. ELLISTONE tr. J. Böhme Signatura Rerum xiii. 158 All things were in equal weight of all the properties
in a Love-play, as it is even so now in Paradise.
a1672 P. STERRY Rise Kingdom of God (1683) 291 Thus Death becometh a Love-play between Christ, and his
Spouse.
1821 BYRON Marino Faliero (2nd issue) Pref. p. xx A tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love-play.
1849 U.S. Mag. & Democratic Rev. Dec. 523 It was during the interlude of this dramatic love-play, that the
editor of the Omni-Versus..returned to New-York.
1879 Times 24 June 10/3 The love play of Perdican and Camille, which ends so sadly and so suddenly in
poor little Rosette's heartbroken cry.
1944 T. RATTIGAN While Sun Shines II. 226 You're both very much mistaken if either of you imagines that
 you're going to have twopence-worth of verbal loveplay with my fiancée on my telephone.
1963 A. HERON Towards Quaker View of Sex 55 Adult heterosexuality presents fewer problems where early
love play is tolerated than where it is suppressed.
1978 D. E. STANFORD Achievement Robert Bridges iii. 169 Christian Captives is primarily a love play.
1997 Resource Packet for Neo-Paganism & Witchcraft 22 Eroticism in its religious reference venerates love
play and the sexual act as divine.

love potion n. a potion supposed to be capable of exciting sexual

attraction or love, esp. towards a particular person; a love philtre; = LOVE-
DRINK n.

a1586 SIR P. SIDNEY Arcadia (1593) V. f. 242v The drinke he had receiued, was neither..a loue potion, nor..a
deadly poyson.
1647 R. STAPYLTON in tr. Juvenal Sixteen Satyrs 85 (margin) Philters or love-potions.
1787 G. GREGORY tr. R. Lowth Lect. Sacred Poetry Hebrews II. III. xxxi. 344 Mandrake was of especial
efficacy in love potions.
1868 Amer. Naturalist 2 186 The flower is fleshy and fragrant, and the native doctors in India use it as a
sort of love-potion.
1931 R. A. FIROR Folkways in T. Hardy v. 115 Legends of the mandrake and of the ‘Hand of Glory’ are closely
connected with love-potions.
2004 Daily Tel. 3 Nov. 7/1 A modern love potion for women..contains herbs reputed for centuries to have
aphrodisiac qualities.

love powder n. (a) a powder administered as a love philtre; †(b) fig.

the explosive charge of love (obs. nonce-use).

1592 R. GREENE Blacke Bookes Messenger sig. C4v He will perswade you hee hath twentie receiptes of Loue
powders.
1623 J. WEBSTER Dutchesse of Malfy V. ii. sig. L4 Confesse to me Which of my women 'twas you hyr'd, to put
Loue-powder into my drinke?
1678 S. BUTLER Hudibras: Third Pt. III. i. 39 When he's with Love-powder laden, And Prim'd, and Cock'd by
Miss, or Madam.
1742 J. YARROW Love at First Sight 14 There are Things call'd Charms, Bribes, and Love-Powder.
1840 F. M. TROLLOPE Michael Armstrong xii. 125 I don't know what love-powder you have been scattering
amongst us, but there is not a single individual of the family who does not positively dote upon you.
1941 Louisiana: Guide to State (Federal Writers' Project) 99 To make a love powder, catch live humming
birds, gut them without first killing them, dry the heart and powder it.
2004 L. ERDRICH Four Souls (2005) ix. 110 Love powders sometimes double back and land upon their maker,
which is why an expert is always required in their use.

love rat n. slang (chiefly Brit.) a man who is sexually unfaithful or

promiscuous.
 1990 Sunday Mail (S. Austral.) (Nexis) 4 Feb. In the place of glowing welcomes..were headlines
baring:..‘love rat snubs his kid’.
1996 Daily Record (Glasgow) (Nexis) 19 Feb. 17 [He] was branded a love rat after rumours of an affair with
his wife's best pal.
2003 C. HOPKINS Starstruck 136 ‘Love rat.’ ‘That's a joke,’ I said. ‘I've only ever snogged three girls.’

love ribbon n. now hist. a narrow gauze ribbon with satin stripes (cf.
sense 11).

1666 in W. M. Myddelton Chirk Castle Accts. 8 Jan. (1908) I. 140 3 doz. of love 2d Rib. 6s, 6 doz of 1d love
Riben 6s.
1790 L. PARADISE Let. 26 Sept. in T. Jefferson Papers (1965) XVII. 520 I will Mourn..Three Months in Black
Silk and love Ribbons.
1882 S. F. A. CAULFEILD & B. C. SAWARD Dict. Needlework 330/1 Love-Ribbon..was employed to tie on Crape
Hat-bands when worn at funerals, and is now occasionally worn by ladies in their caps.
1911 A. M. EARLE Costume of Colonial Times 197 Among the ribbons advertised in the middle of the
eighteenth century were paduasoy ribbons, love ribbons,..and..liberty ribbons.
2003 J. FLANDERS Victorian House (2004) x. 333 Mutes, also with staffs, which had a ‘love ribbon’ tied on
each one, in black normally, or in white for a young girl.

love rites n. sexual intercourse, lovemaking.

With quot. a1754 cf. RIGHT n. IV.

1600 B. JONSON Every Man out of his Humor II. iii. sig. Gv Offer no loue-rites, but let wiues still seeke them,
For when they come vnsought, they seldome like them.
a1754 W. HAMILTON Poems & Songs (1850) 25 Averse she fled The pleasing love-rights of the marriage bed.
1857 H. MELVILLE Confidence-man xxxix. 286 I have been deceived..in this man; he is no true friend that, in
platonic love to demand love-rites?
1998 Washington Times (Nexis) 21 Apr. A4 We asked whether she would similarly denounce the love rites of
homosexuals.

love romance n. now chiefly hist. a fictitious narrative in which

romantic love is a prominent theme; a love story (cf. ROMANCE n. 3a).

?1710 Keach's Instr. for Children (new ed.) 41 The Devil teaches them..to read Love Romances, and frequent
Play-Houses.
1820 T. HODGSKIN Trav. N. Germany II. xiv. 448 The daughters were obliged to spin and sew; and..dared not
read love-romances.
1903 Critic 43 379/1 The first of these novels is a somewhat unreal and exaggerated love-romance of the
Civil War.
2001 V. I. BRAGINSKY Contemp. Stud. Trad. Asian Lit. 41 The text of the religious Canon includes fragments
in various genres: religious sermons..heroic epics..and love romances (the story of Yusuf and
 Zulaykha).

1
† love ron n. [ < LOVE n. + RON n.] Obs. = love roun n.

a1300 in C. Brown Eng. Lyrics 13th Cent. (1932) 68 A Mayde cristes me bit yorne þat ich hire wurche a
luue-ron.

1
† love roun n. [ < LOVE n. + ROUN n.] Obs. a tale or song of love; cf. love
ron n.

c1225 (▸?c1200) St. Katherine (Royal) (1981) 49 Nalde heo..nane luue runes leornin ne lustnin.

love scene n. an intimate scene between lovers, esp. in a story or play.

1639 P. MASSINGER Unnaturall Combat III. iii. sig. G2v I will bring you Where you..may see The love-scæne
acted.
1749 J. CLELAND Mem. Woman of Pleasure I. 72 To..a recital of the love-scene, I had..been spectatress of.
1818 Theatrical Inquisitor 13 183 Love-scenes..which both French and English writers..regard as absolutely
essential to their drama.
1850 J. HANNAY Singleton Fontenoy I. I. iii. 35 Circe resumed a love-scene between Adèle and the tender
forçat.
1932 R. CAMPBELL Taurine Provence 37 Read his [sc. Shaw's] miserable love-letters (published) and his ‘love-
scene’ between Caesar and Cleopatra.
1999 T. PARSONS Man & Boy (2000) xxxii. 279 Charlie wanted to fast forward over the love scenes and
moments of reflection and get straight to the combat.

love seal n. rare a seal with a device appropriate to correspondence

between lovers.

1877 W. JONES Finger-ring Lore 21 The impress being two human heads..the prototype of the numerous
‘love seals’ of a later period.

love seat n. (a) a form of armchair (also, of sofa) designed for two
occupants; (b) a pair of chairs connected together at the side (and
sometimes set to face in opposite directions).

1847 Charleston (Va.) Gaz. 19 Dec. 3/5 (advt.) Sofas and love seats, and convenient occasional chairs, all in
the loveliest colors.
1904 P. MACQUOID Hist. Eng. Furnit. ix. 220 Double chairs or love-seats.
1915 F. W. BURGESS Antique Furnit. 205 Such settees which closely resemble an adaptation of two single
chairs, are commonly called ‘love-seats’.
 1970 Canad. Antiques Collector Dec. 21/1 A Victorian love seat Mr. Daniel saw being hauled away in a
garbage truck.
1973 ‘D. HALLIDAY’ Dolly & Starry Bird x. 151 Johnson..kissed her, and then..found a love seat and dropped
there beside her.
2006 Metro (Toronto) 5 Jan. 23/3 They were the first to carry three sofa sizes: the standard three-seater,
the ‘mini’ sofa and the love seat.

† love soken n. Obs. rare the right of a tenant to grind corn at a mill of
his or her choosing (contrasted with bond soken).

1523 J. FITZHERBERT Bk. Surueyeng ix. f. 9v But and he [sc. the tenant] bye his corne in the market or other
places, he is than at lybertie to grynde where he may be best serued, that maner of grynding is called
loue Socone, and the lordes tenauntes be called bonde socon.
[1656 T. BLOUNT Glossographia (at cited word) There is Bond-socome,..and Love-Socome. [Also in later
dictionaries.]]

love-spoon n. an ornately styled wooden spoon, sometimes with a

double bowl, traditionally carved (esp. in Wales) for presentation as a love
token to one's intended wife.

1891 Daily Nevada State Jrnl. 29 Oct. 1/3 The latest outbreak of the souvenir spoon mania is a ‘love spoon’.
The bowl is heart shaped and of bright gold.
1918 W. R. BUTTERFIELD in Connoisseur Aug. 191/1 At first,..love-spoons did not differ greatly from the
wooden spoons in ordinary use in the household.
1968 J. ARNOLD Shell Bk. Country Crafts 193 The Welsh carvers..produced a great deal of fine work, amongst
which were the celebrated love-spoons.
1972 Country Life 20 Jan. 160/2 These [sc. stay busks] were rather in the manner of Welsh love-spoons and
were made by young men for their intended marriage partners.
2005 Brit. Life Jan. 66/3 An ancient craft and a cultural symbol, the Welsh lovespoon is a token
traditionally given by a young man to his beloved. Locked within each design is a special message.

† love-sport n. Obs. amorous play, lovemaking.

1598 G. CHAPMAN Blinde Begger of Alexandria sig. C3 So maddam I leaue you now from our loue sportes.
1605 G. CHAPMAN Al Fooles I. i Where I am cloyde, And being bound to loue sports, care not for them.
a1672 P. STERRY Disc. Freedom of Will (1675) II. 159 They lie naturally and nakedly in the bosom of each
other, according to their Divine Love-sport and play in the Palace of their Father.
1726 tr. ‘D. P. E.’ Hist. Amours Marshal de Boufflers 270 Amorous Riddles..are no small addition to the
variety of Love Sports.
1857 J. A. HERAUD Judgem. of Flood I. II. iii. 59 They gambolled in the love-sport, like with like.

love story n. a story in which the main theme is the affection existing
between lovers.

1594 T. NASHE Vnfortunate Traveller sig. E4 Not a litle was I delighted with this vnexpected loue story.
1624 P. MASSINGER Bond-man I. iii. sig. B4 They cannot..Vsher vs to our Litters, tell loue Stories.
1781 T. WARTON Hist. Eng. Poetry III. xxi. 57 This was the most favorite love-story of our old poetry.
1822 J. CLARE Let. 5 Nov. (1985) 250 I keep writing on with my love story & think worse & worse of it as I
proceed.
1890 J. M. BARRIE My Lady Nicotine xxiii. 190 The tragedy..is led up to by a pathetic love-story.
1938 E. GOUDGE Towers in Mist xvi. 343 That famous love story, so wrapped up in legend now that it was
hard to disentangle truth from falsehood.
2002 Time 25 Feb. 62/2 Crossroads and A Walk to Remember are old-fashioned chick flicks, one a gal-
bonding movie, the other a love story.

love tale n. = love story n.

1592 T. NASHE Pierce Penilesse (Huntington Libr. copy) sig. F2v Is it..fine grace in telling of a loue tale
amongst Ladies, can make a man reuerenst of the multitude?
1633 J. SHIRLEY Bird in Cage v. I 2 b Forgetting all their legends, and Loue tales Of Venus, Cupid, and the
scapes of Joue.
1667 MILTON Paradise Lost I. 452 The Love-tale Infected Sions daughters with like heat.
1773 R. GRAVES Spiritual Quixote I. III. v. 135 She has not been entertained with a single love-tale.
1802 J. RITSON Anc. Eng. Metrical Romanceës I. p. vii The love-tales of Longus, Heliodorus, and Xenophon
of Ephesus.
1933 I. GERSHWIN Luckiest Man in World in R. Kimball Compl. Lyrics I. Gershwin (1993) 198/1 It's quite the
perfect love tale; In ev'ry way we dovetail.
1998 Jrnl. (Newcastle) (Nexis) 13 Feb. 28 This bitter-sweet love tale from Hong Kong seems an unlikely
mood-enhancer at first.

love tap n. a tap or gentle blow to indicate love or affection; also in

extended use.

1829 Offering for 1829 82 I verily believe he would have spent half the night in mustering up the requisite
courage for a gentle love-tap.
1889 ‘M. TWAIN’ Connecticut Yankee xxxiii. 426 When I make up my mind to hit a man, I don't plan out a
love-tap.
1988 M. COHEN Living on Water 135 He made a mock fist and hit me on the chest, one of those little love-
taps men give to each other.
2002 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 22 Nov. B17/2 The dramatic information is slipped into the movie with
devastating panache: a love tap delivered with the force of a speeding car.

† love-thing n. Obs. rare a pledge of love, betrothal.

 c1275 (▸?a1200) LA% AMON Brut (Calig.) (1963) 86 For he heo heuede swiþe ilofeð [read ilofed], & luf-þing
hire biheite.

† love-tick n. Obs. = love tap n.

1493 Dives & Pauper (Pynson) X. viii. I iij b Yt mischeif is noo curse but a louetyk of god.
1635 F. QUARLES Emblemes III. vi. 146 Her frownes..may chance to show An angry love-trick [read -tick] on
his arme, or so.

love-tight adj. rare that is proof against love.

1869 A. MACLAREN Serm. preached in Manch. 2nd Ser. iv. 71 I can shut it out, sealing my heart love-tight
against it.

† love tooth n. Obs. rare an inclination for love.

1580 J. LYLY Euphues & his Eng. (new ed.) f. 66 I am nowe olde, yet haue I in my head a loue tooth.

love triangle n. a state of affairs in which one person is romantically or

sexually involved with two others (one or both of whom may not be aware
of or complicit in the situation); cf. eternal triangle at TRIANGLE n. 1c.

1909 La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune 21 June 1/1 Two yellow men and the pretty 20 year old missionary
girl..form the love triangle the police have uncovered.
1924 I. GERSHWIN Not so long Ago in R. Kimball Compl. Lyrics I. Gershwin (1993) 41/1 If you want my angle
on the love triangle, I'm for no front-headline stunts.
1999 S. L. KASFIR Contemp. Afr. Art iv. 116 One source of conflict for these women is the love triangle—
husband, wife and girlfriend (or husband, older wife and new wife).
2004 D. KLINGER Into Kill Zone v. 230 It turned out to involve three guys that were living together, with
some type of love triangle.

† love veil n. Obs. a veil made of thin crape or gauze material (see sense
11).

1835 Rhode-Island Republican 27 May 3/1 (advt.) Black Love Veils! A large and splendid article for
mourning, rec'd. this day at May 27.
1864 Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta, Georgia) 29 Sept. 2/5 Black Love-Veils, very fine.
1889 Harper's Mag. Oct. 696/1 I'd rip up an' press an' clean ladies' dresses, an' do over their crape an' love
veils.
 love-wildered adj. poet. (now rare) bewildered or troubled by love;
lovesick.

1789 E. DARWIN Bot. Garden: Pt. II 93 The squab Fiend..Seeks some love-wilder'd Maid with sleep
oppress'd.
1875 W. B. SCOTT Poems 39 Love-wildered, I had lost my head.
1946 ‘S. O'SULLIVAN’ Dublin Poems 64 Your noble silence shames my wronging thought, And all the doubts
and vain imaginings wrought In the dim ways of this love-wildered brain.

love work n. now rare = LOVEMAKING n. (in either sense).

?a1300 Dame Sirith 375 in G. H. McKnight Middle Eng. Humorous Tales (1913) 17 Leue dame, if eni clerc
Bedeþ þe þat loue-werc, Ich rede þat þou grante his bone.
1673 DRYDEN Assignation IV. iii. 46 She's most confoundedly ugly. If ever we had come to Love-work, and a
Candle had been brought us, I had faln back from that face, like a Buck Rabbet in coupling.
1813 ‘T. BROWN’ Intercepted Lett. 23 The Marchesa and he..Have taken much lately to whispering in
doorways;..And a house such as mine is, with door-ways so small, Has no room for such cumbersome
love-work at all!
1936 G. J. NATHAN Theatre of Moment (1970) iii. 44 It is Juliet again who has to do the love work.

C7. In names of plants and animals.

† love-bind n. Obs. rare traveller's joy, Clematis vitalba (cf. sense 12a).

1847 J. O. HALLIWELL Dict. Archaic & Provinc. Words Love-bind, the herb travellers'-joy.
1886 J. BRITTEN & R. HOLLAND Dict. Eng. Plant-names 315 Love-bind. Clematis Vitalba.

love bug n. U.S. a dark-coloured fly, Plecia nearctica (family

Bibionidae), widespread across the southern U.S., which at certain times of
the year forms large swarms of mating pairs; cf. MARCH FLY n. 1.

1937 Lincoln (Nebraska) Sunday Jrnl. & Star 25 July C-D 2/1 He can put up with love-bugs, kissing-bugs
and lady-bird beetles from spring until frost.
1970 Florida Entomol. 53 23 My first encounters with the ‘love-bugs’ were in south Louisiana in the mid-
1930's.
2004 C. BATEMAN Driving Big Davie xxxi. 305 A pair of love bugs were mating on our windscreen. A few
days ago I would have put the wipers on and squished them. Now I let them be.

love bush n. chiefly Caribbean any of various parasitic twining plants of

the genus Cuscuta (family Convolvulaceae); cf. DODDER n. 1.

1814 J. LUNAN Hortus Jamaicensis I. 266 Cuscuta Americana... The negroes of Liguanea mountains call it
 love-bush.
1904 Newark (Ohio) Daily Advocate 6 Aug. 7/2 Oh, the wealth of blossom the love bush had once borne!
1954 Farmer's Guide (Jamaica Agric. Soc.) 582 The common Love-bushes of Jamaica comprise about four
species of Cuscuta.
1986 O. P. ADISA Bake-Face & Other Guava Stories 16 Her eyes stare at the hedges of love-bush, the seeds of
which Carol scattered a few months ago when asking for Richard's love.

lovegrass n. a grass of the genus Eragrostis (frequently with

distinguishing word).
[The reason for the name is unclear.]

1702 J. PETIVER in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 23 1257 What is peculiar in this Love-grass is its having just
under each spike, its stalk clammy.
1855 G. EMERSON Farmer's & Planter's Encycl. Rural Affairs (new ed.) 737/2 Love-grass... It is a pretty
species of foreign grass, growing in gardens about a foot high in any common soil.
1945 J. M. FOGG Weeds of Lawn & Garden 42 Fields solidly occupied by Purple Lovegrass are a conspicuous
and attractive feature of the autumn landscape.
2000 High Country News 6 Nov. 4 (caption) Refuge planner Bonnie Swarbrick walks through a field of
healthy—but non-native—Lehmann lovegrass.

—0
† love-parakeet n. Obs. rare = LOVEBIRD n. 1a.

1889 Cent. Dict. Love-parrakeet, a love-bird.

† love-parrot n. Obs. rare = LOVEBIRD n. 1a.

1852 Walks Abroad 115 The little love- parrot sits beside his mate, and feeds her.
1889 Cent. Dict. Love-parrot, a love-bird.

† love-shell n. Obs. rare the shell of any of several small cowries (genus
Cypraea), used as ornaments.

1864 T. L. PHIPSON Utiliz. Minute Life vii. 155 Other species of Cypræa known..by the English as ‘Love-shells’,
are used as ornaments, etc.

love tree n. the Judas tree, Cercis siliquastrum (family Fabaceae (

Leguminosae)).
[The reason for the name is unclear. Compare quot. 2005.]

[1760 J. LEE Introd. Bot. App. 317 Tree of Love, Cercis.]

1866 J. LINDLEY & T. MOORE Treasury Bot. II. 697/1 Love-Tree. Cercis siliquastrum.
 1889 Gettysburg (Pa.) Compiler 20 Aug. 1/8 In the Allegheny City green-house is a rare tropical plant called
the ‘love-tree.’ Its fruit blends the flavor of the peach, the pine apple and other sweet fruits.
2005 Irish Times (Nexis) 27 Aug. (Magazine) 32 A species with which to catch out your know-all
horticultural friends is Cercis siliquastrum... It's also called the love tree. Could it be because of its
heart-shaped leaves?

love vine n. N. Amer. any of various plants of the genus Cuscuta (family
Convolvulaceae); = DODDER n. 1.
[On the reasons for the name compare quots. 1935, 1974.]

1833 A. EATON Man. Bot. (ed. 6) 116 Cuscuta americana, dodder, love-vine.
1885 A. BRASSEY In Trades 325 The long tendrils of the love-vine rolled up into coils, which he assured us
would live and grow for years, if hung on a nail indoors.
1935 Jrnl. Amer. Folklore 48 333 If you get a section of love vine and move it to another place, name it after
the person about whom you want to know whether he or she is a lover of yours or not, and if the vine
lives, the person does love you; if the vine dies, he or she does not.
1974 Nevada State Jrnl. 29 Sept. 39/6 I came across several plants entwined with dodder, otherwise known
as love-vine. And love plants it does! It smothers them to death with its long golden strands.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2008).

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